THE NEXT three months will be vital for the relationship between Thurrock Council and housing repair group, Morrison.
Portfolio holder for Housing, cllr andy Smith told Wednesday nights full council meeting that all the staff at Morrison were now operating from the Alexandra House base in Lakeside.
He hoped that this was the first step in a number of moves to improve housing repair targets around the borough.
Councillors are still reporting a high number of housing related issues in their surgeries. However, an Ockendon resident recently noted that a concern regarding a dangerous manhole cover was dealt with timeously.
His stern words echoed the call by the chief executive, Graham Farrant that Morrison had to “shape up or ship out.
As a TBC tenant I feel qualified to comment on Morrisons repairs service.
Most of the time they sub out the work to other contractors.
When they make a house call appointment (am or pm) they often miss it, but if you miss it they threaten you with a fine!
Also they send the wrong tradesman, such as in my experience a plasterer to fix faulty floorboards.
When you call about the gas boiler doesn’t work, so you have no hot water or heating at the weekend, it is not classed as an emergency any more. So you have to wait until the Monday.
Trouble is, Morrisons might be the devil you know!
Do TBC have very tight financial controls over Morrison and are they using this to leverage the repairs in the borough or are Morrison left to run the business as they wish? any company like this who has a tender with a local council should be controlled with financial penalties for missed deadlines on any work undertaken.
It would be interesting to see what penalties have been imposed on the cmpany to date, maybe they should look at the model in the North East with Gentoo they seem to have things running very smoothly.
I feel that there is a lot of improvement tobe done by Morrison and that in the first place they should of never been asked to deal with housing repairs!!!!!!!as everytime they do so they just make a total mess or mess it up totally!!!!!!!!!!!!