Shocking images of reclaimed West Lothian council homes were revealed by housing officers after concerns about delays bringing them back into use.
The pictures, taken by West Lothian housing officers, show rooms with rubbish piled high, a destroyed kitchen, and even a bathtub with weeds in it, reports the Daily Record.
Officials say more than half of council homes are now left in similar condition for Building Services staff to clean before they can be let to new families on the council’s waiting list.
Councillor Alison Adamson said: “What we are looking at is criminal damage.
“This is someone who has deliberately gone about wrecking a house for someone else who desperately needs it. This didn’t just happen overnight.”
The images were included in a report to explain the reason for long void times – the gap between one tenant moving out and a new one moving in.
The average number of days a void property takes to re-let peaked in March 2024 at 119 days as the service worked through the backlog of voids from the severe weather event of later 2022 and early 2023.
A living room with knee-deep rubbish
(Image: DR)
All of the homes pictured are termed Category C, meaning the need major refurbishment.
Half of void homes are in this condition and the average cost of restoring homes to a livable standard is £10,000 per house.
Only six per cent of homes returned to council are Category A and requiring minimal work before they can be relet.
Performance is now showing an improved trend – October saw an increase in the number of voids being let to new tenants. This is expected to continue throughout this year.
Grant Taylor, Building Services manager told a recent meeting of West Lothian Council’s Housing Services PDSP that at the end of November Building Services had completed refurbishment of 1143 mainstream and temporary tenancy homes in the 24/25 financial year – an average of 33 a week.
Of those 990 have now been let. Building Services received 936 new voids during the same period to November 30.
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Bathgate saw the highest number of voids returned to let with 179 followed by Whitburn (168) Armadale (142) and the Breich Valley (137).
Councillors thanked front-line staff who restore the homes for new tenants
(Image: DR)
Mr Taylor told the meeting: “It’s averaging just over £10,000 for the council to return and repair a category C property. That £10,000 per house also puts pressure on the housing revenue account.
“You can see the amount of additional work and in some instances these properties go out to an external company to come in and do the basic cleaning and removal. This is one of the major reasons that we have not been getting properties returned within the previous timescales.
“We are working hard to try to overcome these issues.”
Councillor Adamson gave credit to the staff who clean the homes in preparation for new tenants, saying: “ I can only sympathise with the staff who have to deal with this on a day to day basis. It shows the sort of pressures that everyone is under in the whole housing situation.
“It must be extremely depressing. I can only say thank you for the work that you do. I really hope we can make some inroads into this.”
A new team has been formed in the housing department which aims to speed up the void process.
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