Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

An interactive self-service system for council tenants is to be rolled out in West Lothian to help householders find out how long they will have to wait for repairs and refurbishment programmes.

Housing staff are developing the system for the new financial year starting in April. The announcement was made during the budget meeting which agreed spending on the council’s rolling refurbishment programme.

The new budget agreed this week has £43,687m set aside for refurbishment programmes to the housing stock. Of that £22m will be spent on kitchen and bathroom upgrades in the next five years.

Housing legislation requires the council to upgrade the kitchens and bathrooms in around 350 homes per year. The refurbishment programme is an ongoing one but was stalled badly by the local down and pandemic restrictions in terms of access to homes.

A self-service system for council tenants is to be rolled out in West Lothian to help householders find out how long they will have to wait for repairs and refurbishment programmes.

However, speaking at the budget meeting Graeme Struthers, depute chief executive responsible for housing said that the programme was back on track.

Marjory Mackie, Housing Strategy and Development Manager said: “We aim to start sharing information with our tenants at the start of the next financial year in order that they are aware of where they are going to be in the programme.

“We’re also developing a new housing management system which we anticipate will be an interactive system for tenants to self-serve; to check where they may be on the programme of work.”

West Lothian Council self-service repairs portal for tenants