More than 100,000 homes in West Yorkshire contain serious health hazards – more than 23,000 of them in Kirklees.
Figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government show the extent to which problems such as mould or asbestos are prevalent within the area.
If a house is found to have a serious health hazard after a health inspection then the inspecting local authority has a duty to take steps to improve the situation by contacting the landlord and issuing a statutory notice if necessary. Failure to comply with a statutory notice could lead to a fine of up to £5,000 and/or the council carrying out work in default.
Across West Yorkshire, councils estimate that there were as many as 106,864 dwellings with category one (i.e. serious) health hazards as of the end of March 2015.
In order to repair these dwellings and remove the health hazards would cost £391.7 million according to the estimates from each local authority.
Fifteen local authority run houses were found to have serious health hazards. Two of these were located in Kirklees with the council estimating that £42,000 would need to be spent to repair them.
Kirklees has an estimated 23,300 houses in which there are serious health hazards according to the figures. In order to cover the cost of the houses in the private sector £125 million would need to be spent.
Across the whole of England 2.4 million dwellings were thought to have serious health hazards at the end of March 2015. Of these, 4,859 were controlled by local authorities.
It would cost an estimated £9 billion in order to repair all these homes.
