An additional £2 million for improvements to housing services across the city has been agreed by Bristol City Council's Cabinet.

The extra cash includes:

• £1m to improve the minimum standard of council properties at the letting stage
• A further £500,000 because of an anticipated higher number of re-lets based on this year's levels
• An additional £695,000 to meet growing demand for home adaptations by council house tenants

Councillor Mark Wright, Cabinet Member for Housing and Service Improvement, said: "Helping maintain the dignity and independence of disabled people is a key commitment and this additional funding should make a real improvement to the lives of a significant number of our residents.


"Another area where we will be improving our services to residents through additional funds is improving the standard of property lets to new tenants. Feedback has shown that this is a key issue and by making sure we address this we will also help ensure that long-term tenancy problems are avoided."

The Home Adaptations Service has been receiving rapidly increasing numbers of requests to modify the homes of disabled people in recent years.

However, while budgets have been increased in order to try to meet the demand they have not kept pace and therefore waiting times for customers have become longer, especially for council tenants where demand is highest.

An additional "one-off" allocation of £695,000 will be allocated to reduce waiting times for council tenants to that experienced by disabled people who own their own home or rent from a landlord other than the city council.

(CD/GK)