Waverley has fitted 688 of 879 planned fire doors in its council homes, and 555 water safety jobs were still open in September, 194 of them high risk.
Waverley Borough Council has fitted 688 of the 879 fire doors it planned to install in its council homes. That leaves 191 still to go, and the job has been partly taken off the contractor that was doing it.
The figures are in the council’s August performance exceptions report, which went to the Landlord Services Advisory Board on 24 September. The same meeting heard that 555 water safety repairs were still outstanding in September, 194 of them classed as high risk.
The council owns 4,749 homes across the borough, including in Farnham, Godalming, Haslemere and Cranleigh. The report does not break the figures down by town.
Fire doors: 78% done against a 100% target
Fire doors are the only safety measure in the report that is well short of target. The report puts the gap down “primarily” to contractor performance, plus four homes where the council could not get in.
What the council has done about it:
- every fire door installation not yet ordered has been moved to a second contractor, Sureserve
- Ian Williams, one of its repairs contractors, has been sent a second warning letter “in relation to other works”
- the report says that if progress does not improve, the council “may not issue further works before the contract ends”
Ending that flow of work needs 13 weeks’ notice before April, according to the report. The council’s aim is to finish the remaining installations by the end of the year.
Other fire safety work is moving. Overdue fire safety repairs fell from 112 to 99 during August, and outstanding asbestos jobs from four to three.
Water safety: 555 jobs open, 194 high risk
Water safety work is about controlling the risk of Legionella bacteria in a building’s water system. The council hired SMS Environmental Services in December 2025 to clear a backlog of repairs, on a 36-month contract.
The water remedial actions progress report sets out where things stood on 4 September:
| Risk level | Total identified | Completed | Still outstanding |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | 407 | 213 | 194 |
| Medium | 660 | 326 | 334 |
| Low | 236 | 209 | 27 |
| Total | 1,303 | 748 | 555 |
Of the 555, 328 are older jobs identified before 1 March 2026. The other 227 have been found since.
The backlog is shrinking. SMS completed 118 of the older overdue jobs in August, and the separate performance report records overdue water safety actions falling from 655 to 330 during the month. The progress report says SMS has five full-time plumbers on the Waverley contract, rising to six in October.
The target is to finish by 15 December. The report’s own projection puts SMS’s recent pace at about 66 jobs a week. At that rate, the 555 open on 4 September would take about eight and a half weeks, though new jobs are still being added: the total identified rose from 1,290 to 1,303 in a fortnight.
One sheltered housing scheme, Moat Lodge, is still to be converted to mains water. That work has been pushed back to October so plumbers can concentrate on the repairs.
The council says residents are not in immediate danger. Its report states that high-risk jobs are being done first, that interim controls are in place, and that little-used taps are flushed weekly. It adds that an outstanding job “does not necessarily indicate that residents are at risk”.
The rest of the safety checks
Six of the seven core safety measures were within the council’s tolerance in August. The report gives these figures:
- Gas safety checks: 99.41% done, 25 homes overdue, 19 referred for legal action to get access
- Smoke alarms: 99.46%, 26 homes outstanding
- Electrical safety reports: 99.64%, 18 homes outstanding
- Carbon monoxide detectors: 99.6%, 17 homes outstanding
- Water risk assessments: 97.7%, down from 98.8% in July, with seven overdue at the end of August
Damp and mould repairs slipped. In August, 25 of 32 completed cases were finished within the 12-week limit, or 78%, after three months at 100%.
Eight of the council’s homes did not meet the Decent Homes Standard at the end of August, down from nine in July.
What it means for you
If you rent from Waverley, most of the gaps in these figures are homes where the council’s contractors could not get in. The report shows the council is taking legal action to get into homes for gas checks, so answering an appointment letter matters.
- If you have a fire door, smoke alarm or water job booked, keep the appointment or rearrange it. The board was also shown a draft No Access Policy setting out how it will handle homes it cannot get into, with legal enforcement described as a last resort.
- If you think a water, damp or fire safety problem in your home has been missed, report it to the council’s housing repairs team through waverley.gov.uk.
- If a complaint is not resolved, you can take it to the Housing Ombudsman once the council’s own process is finished.
All the papers from the 24 September meeting are on the council’s meeting page. For the council’s other recent decisions, see our council tax bands page.
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