Storm Arwen - damage repairs update

Following Storm Arwen which caused unprecedented damage to our tenants’ homes, we are drawing up a programme of work to ensure we repair as many properties as quickly as we can, with the most seriously damaged attended to first.

Our key messages to tenants are:

• We are prioritising the work to our customers’ homes and working as quickly as we can to repair the storm damage.
• We are aware of damaged properties, we are finalising our estate surveys and you will be on our programme of work to get your home repaired as quickly as possible.
• If the situation at your home deteriorates, or if you feel that something is immediately dangerous resulting from storm damage before we can get to you, please contact us immediately on 0344 800 3800 and we will respond to you as soon as possible.
• We really appreciate your patience and understanding at this difficult time and our internal repairs team and external contractors are working hard to carry out the repairs as quickly as possible.

The scale of the damage we are dealing with is unprecedented:

• A significant proportion of our properties were damaged in Storm Arwen
• More than 800 repairs were reported to us on voicemail on the weekend of the storm with thousands more repairs raised through our contact centre and estate surveys.
• Damage ranges from lost roofs and structural damage to chimneys and walls, through to lost tiles, broken fences, damaged walls and fallen trees.

The majority of the storm damage was caused to homes in North Northumberland, particularly in Berwick and surrounding communities – but there is significant damage as well across south east Northumberland, North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, and County Durham.

So far to date we have erected around 130 scaffolds at homes to allow our teams access to roofs to carry out repairs and make homes safe.

We continue to prioritise making homes wind and watertight as soon as possible and if you do have water coming into your home let us know and we will get a team out to you as quickly as possible.

Where our customers’ homes have lost a roof or been badly damaged, we are working hard to ensure those homes have at least a temporary repair to keep them dry.

The scale of the damage means that it is going to take months – and not weeks – to complete all repairs to every home.

That’s why we’re surveying all our estates, to make sure we’re aware of exactly what and where the problems are, to help us plan out the work required, and the resources needed to tackle it.

Our teams have often identified damage that tenants were not aware of while carrying out these inspections.

We are aware that fencing and garden walls have been significantly damaged and once we have our customers’ homes repaired we will turn our attention to fences and walls, so please bear with us while we do this.

We appreciate that it’s a worry to have to wait for repairs.

Please be assured we are working hard to get the repairs to our customers’ homes completed as quickly as we can.

Thank you once again for your patience and understanding.