From Bad To Worse For East Kent Housing

Last week we discovered that East Kent Housing had failed to ensure up to date gas safe certificates for hundreds of homes across Kent. The news spread fast across the southern country as it's public were left shocked at the number of people it had affected.

Hundreds of homes means potentially thousands of people were left exposed to unsafe gas work. With pressure on the housing authority to rectify their mistakes, it has now emerged that further safety issues have been uncovered.

According to a report published by Canterbury City Council's Chief Executive...

 

“further cases of potential non-compliance with regards to other areas of safety work”...

These further cases were found by the East Kent Internal Audit Partnership who found problems associated with fire, lift, electrical and legionella safety placing even more stress on the well being of their residents. Upon reflection, what excuse can a huge organisation such as EKH (East Kent Housing) possibly have? Failing to recruit a Gas Safe Registered Engineer who has undergone all relevant Gas Training Courses and holds correct Qualifications shouldn't be that hard? To then be accused of failing to abide by other rules really doesn't give a good impression for residents.

What Else Does The New Report Tell Us?

It tells us that a decision regarding EKH's future is set to be made later this year. All eyes are on the guys in charge to make sure they enforce a punishment to deter other organisations from not following simple health and safety legislation.

For those that didn't know, EKH currently oversee properties for four Kent councils and it will be interesting to see the way forward for all four parties.

It turns out that an improvement plan had already been put into place for EKH which came with an £800,000 annual cash injection. But what good did that do? The council report even stated..

“It was made clear by each council that this 18-month period was the last opportunity for EKH to improve to an acceptable level of performance” 

The latest news on the matter also tells us that just two months after the improvement plan came into play, Heating Contractors' 'P&R Installations Company' had already ran into a heap of problems with them... Although it's not 100% clear, it's been reported that there were 'serious' issues with the gas safety checks of the homes... Look like this isn't the first time!

In what may just be another news article for some, it certainly isn't news that we take lightly here at Able Skills. From an educational standpoint, we are of course the UK's leading training provider for Gas Training Courses and know exactly how important it is to make sure every property holds a valid gas safe certificate.

We hope news like this increases the awareness of just how important Gas Safety is and we will continue to push for a safer world! If you want to know what it takes to undergo our Gas Training Courses so you can issue a Gas Safety Certificate, please click here.