A NEW method is being used to help slash the time and cost of repairing Swindon's council houses.

Swindon Borough Council’s director of operations Brian Pinchbeck revealed drones were negating the need for scaffolding when he gave a report to councillors on the authority’s resources and corporate overview and scrutiny committee.

And he said the team, while understaffed, was increasing its rate of getting repairs done, especially on the first visit, as the council battles with a backlog of repairs caused in part by the Covid-19 restrictions of 2020 and 2021.

It has already brought a list of 6,000 repairs needed down to 2.900.

Mr Pinchbeck said the council has three remotely-controlled flying drones, and they were proving a big help: “One big area where we’ve made improvements is with roof repairs, particularly where you have to have access to the roof.

“Whereas previously you’d need to put up scaffolding at a property to be able to allow safe access to the roof for an inspection, now we can use one of our three drones to inspect the roof.

“They are really helping to cut the time and cost to the housing revenue account instead of having to put up scaffolding. It also means tenants don’t have to be in to let us in.”

“It has increased the number of jobs we are to do and saved a significant amount of money.”

Mr Pinchbeck told the committee that the percentage of repairs made on the first visit to a property had gone up from 65 per cent to 85 per cent.

Chairman of the committee Councillor Dave Martyn said: “That sounds like good progress. What does a good performance look like?”

Mr Pinchbeck said there needed to be further improvement, adding: "I’d say 90 to 95 per cent would be good.”

One of the issues, he said, was too high a rate of appointments which are missed because the tenant is no in to let council staff or their contractors in to make a repair.

He said: “During October 8.8 per cent of all appointments were missed because tenants missed them. If we can cut that down, then it would be better.

“At the moment we are better than average but not in the upper quartile of authorities.”

His report said one way of cutting missed appointments would be not to accept a new appointment, without making sure of a tenant's up-to-date contact details.