COUNCIL tenants will benefit from £137m of repairs to their homes after Enfield Homes fought for a two-star "good" rating and won.

The Audit Commission, who said the housing management body was a “borderline” case for funds, gave it a one star rating initially, which would have meant the funds were lost.

But housing bosses persuaded the independent watchdog that their original findings in several areas, including tenant engagement and tenancy management, were too harsh.

Chief Executive Bob Heapy said he was delighted, and added there was “very high customer satisfaction" overall with the decent homes works.

He said: "The Audit Commission said there were a number of instances where work hadn't been done properly - but in one case it was because there was some sawdust in a kitchen cabinet,” and added that there were no instances where the fundamental repair work to electrical or plumbing systems had not been done properly.

He added: “There is no doubt that it has become harder to achieve a two-star rating over the last couple of years and the Audit Commission themselves have confirmed that the bar has been raised. “

Enfield Homes now plans to bring all the 16,000 properties it manages up to standard by 2014, using a £230m pot for repairs, which includes £100m extra from Enfield Council.

This is three years behind the Government's decent homes deadline of 2010, set in 2000 as a means of meeting minimum legal standards on the standard of repair, facilities and heating.

According to the department of Communities and local Government, Enfield is in a minority of five per cent of councils who will not meet the 2010 deadline.

A CLG spokesman said: “We expect around 95 per cent of Local Authorities across the country to be fully decent by the end of 2010. We are working with any of the others to put in place a works plan.”

In May we reported how Enfield Homes launched an investigation into a case highlighted by the Independent of tenant Catherine Healey who listed a catalogue of complaints about work done including water dripping from pipes onto the floor and nails sticking out of the walls. Mr Heapy said the case was a "one-off incident" involving a sub-contractor of contractors Apollo "who had now been dismissed."

He said: "We have done everything we could to minimise the risk [of this happening again]".

On tenant participation, which was one of the reasons Enfield Homes failed in the draft report, the published report said: "Resident involvement is reasonably well embedded although it doesn't fully meet the needs of all the community," which Enfield Homes is hoping to tackle with five free community festivals in Edmonton, Enfield and Southgate beginning on July 25.

Housing cabinet member Matthew Laban said the council plans on the future of the Ladderswood estate, in New Southgate, under its placeshaping, or regeneration scheme, could be drawn up within six months.

On the Shires estate, where some houses have damp problems, he said purchasing cladding would cost "tens of millions of pounds", an option which would be "looked at", along with cheaper alternatives.