Social housing firm to be disbanded

The process to officially disband East Kent Housing has been set in motion following last summer’s safety scandal. Hundreds of homes were left with outof-date inspections, and the four councils that own the management firm admitted lives were put at risk.

As a result, Canterbury, Dover, Thanet, Folkestone and Hythe councils proposed to close EKH and deliver the services in-house.

Council house tenants were asked to share their views on the future direction - with the results showing an overwhelming desire to disband the firm.

Last month, councillors at all four authorities agreed to start officially dissolving EKH.

A spokesman for the councils said: “We really appreciate the patience of tenants, leaseholders and staff at EKH while we went through the appropriate decision-making process.

“We look forward to working with them to create as smooth a transition process as possible while at the same time building for the future.”

While the firm is disbanded, EKH will continue to operate until the alternative arrangements are in place.

A damning report in December described housing bosses’ failure to fix urgent fire safety issues as “unforgivable” in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy.

The entire EKH board was sacked following the investigation by consultants Pennington Choices.

Its report highlighted a focus on cost-cutting rather than resolving 4,800 fire safety problems across the districts.

The board was replaced by Canterbury’s chief executive Colin Carmichael, Dover’s Nadeem Aziz, Thanet’s Madeline Homer and Folkestone and Hythe’s head of paid service Dr Susan Priest.