Birmingham City Council has revealed it is still dealing with more than double the number of calls to its repairs contact centre compared with this time last year, as the temperatures remain below zero and the snow continues to fall.
During last weekend when the snow gripped the city almost 2,700 calls were made, compared to a typical weekend with 900 calls.
Since then, tenants who require repair works to their homes have continued calling in high numbers,over 6,300 calls received on Monday and over 7,900 on Tuesday. Officers have worked hard to deal with hundreds of extra calls.
As a result of the high volume of calls being dealt with, the average time to answer has increased, as has the average handling time of dealing with each call.
A pre-recorded message on the repairs line has been actively managed over this period in order that the council’s contractors can get in touch with tenants who are unsuccessful in having their calls answered.
The council aims to dispatch an engineer to its customer within 24 hours. In times of greatest demand, customers calls are dealt with on a priority basis, with help going first to those in greatest need.
Councillor John Lines, Cabinet Member for Housing said: “Due to the adverse weather conditions, the council has been flooded with extra calls during this very cold period. We are carrying out repairs on much higher number of properties than usual and with over 65,000 properties under our management, we are working hard to meet the needs of all our tenants.
“When I first became Cabinet Member in 2004, only 30% of council properties had central heating systems in their homes and I’m proud that now almost all our homes are warm. However, when there are repairs problems, we will work with our contractors to fix any problems.”
The council is advising that people wrap up warm in the cold weather with extra layers of clothes or blankets and keep the heating on to create a steady temperature. Customers experiencing heating system failures can ring the contact centre on 0121 303 1111.
