Norwich City Council has a lot of housing stock - which means there is a lot that can go wrong.

That is a fact Suzi Earl knows only too well as she struggles to get by in what has been dubbed "Norwich's worst council home".

All in all, Norwich city council’s housing stock consists of 14,553 properties.

This includes:

  • 7,127 flats (one and two bedrooms) and maisonettes (which mostly have three bedrooms)

  • 6,019 houses (which mostly have three bedrooms)

  • 336 bungalows (excluding sheltered housing properties). These are mostly one-bedroom properties.

  • 923 sheltered housing properties

  • New builds – 73 flats and 75 houses

  • 157 homes sold through the Right to Buy.

The council carries out repairs and among non-urgent and emergency in the term 2021-2022 they carried out some 29.844 repairs on their housing stock.

According to data provided to the Evening News, 99.39pc of homes in the city have achieved the Norwich standard, which the council have said goes beyond the government's decent homes standard.

The Norwich standard means that homes in the council's housing stock will have no kitchen that is more the 20 years old, no bathroom more than 30 years old and no boiler more than 15 years old.

Over the period 2020-2021 the councils' repairs and updates consisted of:

  • 258 new kitchens installed

  • 459 new bathrooms installed

  • 381 new heating systems installed

  • 1,356 electrical upgrades completed

  • 501 properties had external doors replaced

  • 306 properties had new windows fitted

  • Six properties had a new roof fitted and 19 properties received roofline works.

Councillor Gail Harris, Norwich City Council’s cabinet member with responsibility for social housing, said: “We are very proud to have been providing social housing for over a century and are constantly working to make sure these homes are safe, high quality and energy efficient.

“Maintaining these homes and building new ones to help replace those lost through the Right to Buy are all part of our wider commitment to meeting housing need in the city.”

But this serves little comfort for Suzi whose home in NR3 is currently riddled with mould, damp and is sinking into the ground.