Tenant satisfaction with West Northants council housing rises as improvement plan continues
People living in council-owned housing in West Northamptonshire have reported feeling more satisfied with their landlord service, says a council report.
According to a 2025/26 annual performance report on Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH), which is West Northants Council’s (WNC) current social housing provider, its overall tenant satisfaction score increased to 71 per cent last year. This is a rise from 67.5 per cent of tenants who said they were “satisfied with the overall service from their landlord” in 2024/25.
Tenant Satisfaction Measures, which are made up of a standardised list of 22 performance measures, must be collected annually by all social housing landlords with more than 1,000 properties.
West Northants councillors are set to review the latest progress on the authority’s housing improvement journey on Thursday (July 16), when a report will be brought to cabinet detailing NPH’s performance.
WNC has said that the overall performance for 2025/26 shows a “positive direction of travel” across customer satisfaction, safety compliance, and property standards.
In November 2025, WNC’s cabinet voted to close NPH to bring the management of housing services back in-house by April 2027. The council said the phased transition of the housing service is running at the same time as its ongoing service improvement work.
This follows a self-referral to the Regulator of Social Housing in 2024, when ‘serious failings’ relating to national safety and quality standards were identified and NPH was given a C3 judgement, which is the second worst rating available.
It was identified at the time that key statistics were not being reported accurately and that over a fifth of its 11,500 social houses did not meet the decent homes standard, which is a baseline designed to ensure that all rented homes in England are safe, warm, and free of dangerous hazards.
In 2025/26, the proportion of non-decent properties reduced from a starting point of 19.2 per cent to 7.6 per cent. A target has now been set to ensure that all remaining properties meet the decent homes standards by September 2026.
The regulator also found a lack of adequate systems and processes to ensure compliance with key safety checks in homes.
Checks for fire, asbestos, and water safety all saw 100 per cent compliance and electric and gas safety compliance improved throughout the year. Lift safety checks have been identified as an area of focus in 2026/27, with four lifts without valid certification.
The report also noted that meetings with the housing regulator have been reduced to bi-monthly “as a result of the positive progress”. However, it confirmed it would not be able to challenge its C3 regulatory grading until a planned inspection takes place, which is expected no later than March 2028.
While tenants’ satisfaction with overall repairs significantly rose to 76.7 per cent, their views on NPH’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour (ASB) were less favourable. Just 57.2 per cent of people reported they were ‘satisfied’ with the handling of ASB, down from 61.4 per cent in 2024/25.
In total, 301 cases of anti-social behaviour were recorded between April 2025 and the end of March 2026. The most common cases related to noise, verbal harassment or intimidation, and concerns around substance misuse or drug dealing.
The number of ASB reports per 1,000 homes in 2025/26 actually reduced from the previous year, however council officers said that this needed to be considered alongside the perception of residents and agreed that further improvement and increased communication is needed.
The full report will be discussed by WNC’s cabinet at a meeting starting at 6pm at the Towcester Forum, on July 16.