Norwich bears brunt of Connaught fallout

No council has suffered more during the Connaught collapse than Norwich. As the city hunts for a permanent replacement for the £17.5m, five-year deal to repair and maintain 15,571 council homes, more details of what went wrong have emerged this week.

The doomed contract began in April with a host of complaints, including ones about uncut grass that had grown to 2ft high. Yet several councillors have defended Connaught, and alleged that there were issues with the transfer of information between Morrison, the previous incumbent, and Connaught.

Conservative councillor Niki George said there were problems with the circulation of waiting lists for boiler repairs and areas to cut grass.

Another Conservative councillor, Andrew Wilshire, and Lib Dem Judith Lubbock, said the transition was “a disaster”.Morrison lost the Norwich contract to a much lower Connaught bid, which it claimed was “abnormally low” and temporarily halted with a court injunction. “It was bitter that Connaught won the contract,” she said. Morrison said it had passed on “all relevant records and information relating to the contract when it transferred on 1 April”.

A Connaught spokesman said the court battle “threw an element of doubt into the transition”.

New work has been suspended because the council is using short-term contracts for housing repairs as it scrambles to replace the Connaught deal. Three hundred Connaught workers made redundant protested outside the city hall and unions blame the council for the “outrageous” awarding of the contract.

The Norwich contract was one of five that administrators KPMG failed to find buyers for due to their lack of profitability. The others were for Arun council, Raglan Housing Association, Southern Housing and Town & Country Housing.