City council leader Adam Hug

TEMPERATURE sensors are due to be installed in hundreds of homes in a bid to end the scourge of mould and damp in council estates.

A pilot scheme, due to be announced next week, will initially target 1,500 homes in Queen’s Park Court, Mozart and Lisson Green estates, all in north Westminster.

The sensors will feed live temperature and air quality readings back to the housing department so they can decide which homes to “target” for mould-washing works and new vents, a council report said.

Any homes “consistently above a certain heat [27°C]” will trigger an automatic alert to Westminster City Hall, as will households that are persistently cold, where tenants might be “potentially vulnerable” and unable to pay their energy bills.

Mould and damp, which can worsen respiratory conditions and cause depression, is one of the top complaints from tenants in council-owned buildings.

The measures are part of a shake-up of the housing service – further details are to be released next week – that the Labour administration says has historically suffered from a “disconnect” with residents. The problems are connected to the large number of sub-contractors working on repairs jobs across the borough and also there is no competition from an in-house service.

The city council gives £23million to six contractors to carry out repairs, with many jobs being farmed-out to other companies. Delays in resolving leaks and post-work redecoration are also flashpoints for disputes, the report said.

Mozart Estate has the highest repair demand in Westminster, with 6.4 per cent of households officially waiting for some sort of job, followed by Lisson Green and Little Venice.

Labour says it has a series of big announcements coming to shake up the “direction of travel” of the former Conservative-run council.

Developers will be asked to include at least 50 per cent affordable housing in future planning applications, and that at least 70 per cent of affordable homes in council schemes are for social housing tenants.

The council also claims it will “end child hunger” with a package of cost-of-living measures costing around £5.6million.

City council leader Adam Hug told Extra yesterday (Thursday) about plans to “maximise affordable housing” in future council-owned schemes and raise the baseline to 50 per cent from private developers.

Since Labour shocked the country by winning the council in May, Cllr Hug said: “We’re going to significantly improve the social housing that is built over the next decade.

“We want to find ways of building affordable housing in the heart of Westminster and central areas.”