Greenwich Council tenants are waiting ‘up to a month’ for requests for repairs to be addressed, with nearly one in five calls to the repairs team not being answered.

Greenwich Council has outlined plans to improve its response to housing repairs in the borough in an ‘ambitious’ four-year plan.

The topic was discussed at a housing and anti-poverty scrutiny meeting for Greenwich Council on April 10.

Council documents said the team was one and a half years into its change programme and had streamlined its system for allowing residents to request repairs.

Johnson Oyedeji, speaking on behalf of individuals living under Greenwich Council tenancies, criticised the lack of communication between the repairs team and leaseholders.

He said that he had sent a request for a repair to the authority on March 12 and was told it would take 10 working days for his query to be addressed, but he had still not received a response.

Mr Oyedeji said at the meeting: “When I raised the repair, it wasn’t actually attended to. Almost a month after I made the original request, nobody has actually communicated with me. These are some of the things where you will see the productivity is quite low.”

Richard Parkin, senior assistant director of repairs at the council, said the team had seen an improvement in core handling recently but admitted more work could be done.

He added that the team had intentions to investigate what was causing discrepancies in their systems that may incorrectly state repairs had been resolved.

Mr Parkin said at the meeting: “There’s nobody over here saying that on paper repairs looks like it’s running an excellent service or a good service.

"On this side of the table, we’re saying repairs is running a better service than it was a year ago and we’ve got many ways of showing that, but we’re also saying we’ve got a hell of a long way to go.”

Council documents showed the number of calls to the repairs hotline being answered had increased from 54.1 per cent in July 2022 to 84 per cent in February 2024, with answered calls for the repairs customer services line increasing from 66.5 percent to 80.5 per cent.

Labour Councillor Majella Anning said the repairs team had seen fantastic improvements in the past year, but cited concerns that as many as 20 per cent of calls were still not being picked up.

Cllr Anning said at the meeting: “That’s a huge improvement from what it was, but that seems quite shocking that it was still at that level.

"I understand the resourcing and everything that you’re doing but that is a lot of calls not being answered. A lot.”

The councillor said she and other councillors had received several emails since February on unresolved repairs requests raised up to a year ago that council officers believed had been fixed.

Dermot Moloney, head of responsive repairs, said the team was not aware of a system error that was incorrectly notifying tenants that jobs had been closed but asked Cllr Anning to send details of any examples of such issues occurring.