THE fate of Basildon’s council tenants and whether or not their rundown homes get much-needed improvements is now in the hands of Government inspectors.

The Audit Commission is currently running the rule over St George’s Community Housing, the company set up to by the council to manage its 11,500 homes, to decide whether it is eligible for £142million of Government money to do up its properties.

St George’s failed to get the required two-star rating last year, after it was only branded a “fair Service with promising prospects for improvement” which equatd to a one-star rating by inspectors.

Until it achieves this, it cannot get its hands on the money, which is badly needed to bring its homes up to Government-approved Decent Homes standard by the target date of 2014.

The standard says homes must be “warm, weatherproof and have reasonably modern facilities”.

Housing officers have also given a first glimpse of how and when contractors will go about repairing and revamping the houses, if they get the cash.

At the latest board meeting, St George’s officer James Henderson said all was going well and the plan was to start work on particular areas on a “worst first” basis.

St George’s has divided its housing stock into two geographical areas and said it plans to hire different contractors to undertake the necessary work on each.

It plans to appoint two contractors to carry out internal repair work, and two for external work, with only one contractor hired to install external doors and windows, which are needed in some places.

Mr Henderson said St George’s had decided to adopt a “whole house” approach, which means contractors will carry out all the Decent Homes works at once.

He said: “Doing it this way means contractors will be kept under control and it will be easier to monitor the whole programme.”

Commenting on the report, board chairman John Robb, said: “This enables us to hit the ground running, there’s nothing in this report we haven’t already said we’d do.”

The Audit Commission will be inspecting St George’s, which involves talking to members of staff, tenant representatives and board members, as well as doing estate inspections, until the end of the week.

St George’s will find out the result of the inspection in October.