Haringey and Lambeth LBCs have pledged to take action to address housing shortcomings.

The Regulator of Social Housing found Haringey breached health and safety requirements by failing to take action over fire risks and not having up-to-date electrical safety reports for thousands of homes.

More than 100 homes also had serious ‘category one’ hazards and nearly 5,000 did not meet the Decent Homes Standard.

Director of consumer regulation Kate Dodsworth said: ‘The council needs to act urgently to put things right for tenants and we are monitoring it closely as it does this.’

Haringey apologised to residents, adding: ‘The council has taken a series of actions to ensure the number of overdue actions starts to rapidly come down since we initially reported the figures to the regulator in December.’

The Housing Ombudsman has also named Haringey as the landlord that received the most complaint handling failure orders in the past quarter, with four.

Of a total of 38 orders, 14 went to local authorities.

The ombudsman is carrying out a separate wider investigation at Haringey.

Housing secretary Michael Gove has separately ‘demanded answers' from Lambeth LBC about its 'failure to handle complaints’.

The council was recently the subject of a severe maladministration finding from the ombudsman regarding complaints over damp and mould.

A council spokesperson said it had assigned 10 new firms and a new in-house team to repairs and maintenance.

They added: ‘This is part of our wider work to proactively reduce instances of disrepair and resolve them in partnership with our residents, including home health checks and a rapid response team to respond to any reports of damp and mould.

‘We’re committed to continuing these improvements and acting quickly to resolve problems when they are brought to our attention.’

This article was originally published by The MJ (£).