Enfield Council is to hire teams of maintenance workers to fix an “acute” repair problem in the borough’s social housing.

The local authority’s ‘Housing MOT’ scheme will see teams of in-house workers sent out to check the condition of council properties and fix any faults that they find.

The yearly repair programme will come on top of the day-to-day maintenance work carried out by the council’s contractors.

Councillor Nesil Caliskan, leader of Enfield Council, said: “This is an acute problem. There are huge numbers of repairs that are required in our social housing.

“Housing is a long-term strategy, but also a bread-and-butter issue of making sure people live in decent homes.

“Those who live in social housing have been very critical about housing repairs over the past couple of years.

“We need to do something about it – and this is a step in the right direction.”

The council will target properties that generate the most complaints but will also focus on vulnerable residents who may be unable or unwilling to get in touch about faults.

Councillor Caliskan said: “We will contact properties that we never hear from.

“If we have not heard from someone for a number of years, there must be some maintenance work that needs doing.

“It is far better to do the work sooner, before the problems become more costly to deal with.

“Also, there might be situations where an elderly woman or man has not been able to contact the council or repairs team, or does not want to bother us.”

The council leader gave assurances that she expected emergency repairs would still be dealt with promptly at other times of the year.

She said: “If there is an emergency, we would expect our contractors to pick it up. But we are hearing there is so much pressure they are not keeping up.

“In an emergency, I always say contact your councillor.”

The Housing MOT staff will be directly employed by the council, and it will begin advertising the roles in the next few days.

Enfield Council’s administration has previously pledged to review private-sector contracts and look to in-source services where possible.

Cllr Caliskan said: “We have had issues with contractors, and we are looking at ways of getting more out of the contracts.

“I am really clear that I prefer insourcing, and where we can bring services back in house, we will.

“Sometimes it makes sense to work with external providers, but there are some services that cost less if we do it ourselves.”

The council is putting £500,000 into the scheme and expects the money saved from frequent call-outs will cover the costs.

Cllr Caliskan added: “Because we get charged when contractors are called out, we think this will save us money in the long run.

“In the current economic climate, we have to be realistic. But this is my commitment to do everything we can to address the issues when they are acute.”