Angela Rayner [uk parlT_cc-by-3.0]

THE deputy prime minister has been urged to investigate a regulator’s fulsome praise of the city council’s housing service.

The Lillington and Longmoore Gardens Residents’ Association, in Pimlico, wrote to Labour’s Angela Rayner, as housing, communities, and local government secretary of state, questioning a top-of-the-class rating unveiled last week.

Westminster City Council’s housing team had been celebrating after being awarded the highest accolade available to the Regulator of Social Housing.

But the Pimlico group’s letter suggested the high praise did not match up with residents’ experience. The letter said Westminster’s housing had been “poorly managed, and no fundamental improvements have been made”, and added: “We continue to experience a service that, frankly, falls short of expectations…”

“Over the past three years we have been actively working to improve the services we receive from Westminster’s housing management and repairs teams. As acknowledged in May 2024 by the head of the service, it was admitted that these services were not meeting the required standards and have not been fully aligned with residents’ needs.”

Tenants were continuing to experience failures to address damp and mould and there was a “lack of transparency in decision-making”. Call centres were inefficient and there was a high turnover of staff, the letter said, and a “contractor-led repairs system has resulted in consistently poor standards of work, with frequent repeat visits and no continuity of personnel, providing very poor value for money”.

And there were concerns “major works have been billed twice” and over “non-compliance with heritage regulations”.

It continued: “We bel­ieve the regulator may not have fully understood the situation on the ground. We have also spoken to residents on other estates within the borough. There appears to be a significant gap between the intentions expressed by Westminster Housing and the actual, on-the-ground, improvements that residents continue to experience. Our estate deserves to be managed by a skilled and knowledgeable, locally-based team, capable of delivering immediate and effective repairs.”

Cities of London and Westminster MP Rachel Blake, city leader Adam Hug, Cllr Liza Begum and the housing regulator have also been sent the letter.

Last week the council announced the regulator had given Westminster’s service a C1 rating, “indicating that the council meets the consumer standards set by the regulator and effectively addresses and resolves problems when they are identified”.

Cllr Begum, cabinet member for housing, and member for Pimlico South ward, said: “We welcome the findings from the Regulator of Social Housing, which demonstrates the significant progress we’ve made in improving our housing services over recent years. This rating provides an important validation of the steps we have taken to improve the leadership, governance and performance of our housing services and reflects the achievements so far.

“However we know that there is still much to do to ensure residents receive the best possible service, and we fully acknowledge that this result does not mean we always get everything right.”