High flyers on home front
USE OF DRONES HELPING TO CUT COST AND HASSLE OF FIXING CITY COUNCIL HOMES
COUNCIL houses in Nottingham will now be inspected by drones to avoid putting up unnecessary and costly scaffolding.
Nottingham City Homes (NCH) will be using the drones, which carry high-definition cameras, to check roofs and diagnose any issues that may be present in hard-to-reach areas.
The company, which manages the city council-owned homes, used a drone for the first time on a property in Bulwell which had been suffering from a water leak.
Tenant Julie Cross was “impressed” and hopes the leak will soon be fixed.
She said: “It was a very interesting thing to have done.
“It only took a couple of hours rather than have scaffolding outside for weeks,
“I was grateful to be asked to take part in this pilot, and impressed with the whole operation.
“Hopefully the problems that I have been having will be sorted, now that we have a bird’s eye view of my roof.”
The city council will also work with NCH to inspect and carry out work on other properties and homes with solar panels.
It is hoped the new way of inspecting houses will save money while also being less invasive for tenants.
Adrian Cheetham, director of property at NCH, added: “We are always looking for modern, innovative and cost-saving ways of carrying out repairs, without comprising the quality of the work. We are one of those leading the way by using drones to inspect council house properties from above and we believe this is going to help us diagnose issues more quickly and thoroughly.
“We will be working with partners to carry out joint work on properties, which will also save us money but means less disruption to our tenants.”
New council housing developments are being built in the city, including in Top Valley and Basford.