From Monday 27 November, only urgent, emergency and statutory compliance work on council homes will be carried out.

This is to allow priority to be given to work to bring vacant council properties back into use to reduce the housing waiting list and to ensure the council can speed up the process around homelessness services.

The council executive approved this at their meeting on 7 November 2023, as part of a suite of measures to focus resources on addressing homelessness.

Executive councillor for housing services George Paul said: “We are focusing our resources on getting empty properties up to lettable standard as soon as possible.

“This will allow us to meet the increasing demand for social housing across West Lothian and ease the pressure on the housing waiting list.

“There is often a significant amount of work required when a home is vacated, before it can be let out to another tenant. Suspending non-urgent repairs will allow this to be carried out as quickly as possible.”

Tenants will still be able to report all repairs to the council. However, only urgent, emergency repairs will be carried out. The service will monitor the voids position on a weekly basis and will let tenants know when non-urgent repairs resume in the near future.

This suspension does not include any essential compliance works, such as gas servicing, fire safety or housing capital improvement works, which will still be carried out as normal.