So now, at last, we are starting to get some idea of the cost of the Council housing repairs chaos. The authority has already had to pay out more than £250,000 after 60 tenants had to endure long waits for repairs to be carried out. And that is unlikely to be the end of it. There are other claims pending.

This is, of course, not the Council's money. The Council does not have any money. It is Council taxpayers' money over which the Council exercises stewardship, and there are a lot better uses to which it could have been put.

That is not to say that the tenants who have gone to law to pursue their claim do not have a reasonable case. They have been left waiting for many months for repairs to be done. In some cases their roofs were leaking, gas fires were hanging off walls and plaster work was cracked. Any private landlord who failed to attend promptly to conditions like that would rightly be censured by society.

Unless the repairs department is able to give priority to the work needed for those who have had their claims settled while at the same time keeping up to schedule with the rest of its waiting list, there will be more claims made and the compensation bill will continue to grow.

At last night's Council meeting the chairman of the housing and environmental protection committee said that changes have been made and declared: "Poor services will not be tolerated." Let us hope it is a pledge on which the Council is able to deliver.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.