Derbyshire Dales District Council, Amber Valley Borough Council and Erewash Borough Council will share the funding to target poor quality PRS housing standards over a 2 year project period. The partnership project should enable the councils to each inspect 500 PRS properties per 12 month period over the 2 years of the study in order improve housing enforcement outcomes in the PRS.

The funding comes from the same pot provided by DLUHC and recently accessed by Greater Manchester, Leeds and Cornwall to trial "new approaches" to driving up standards in their PRS sectors.

Tim Braund, Derbyshire Dales' Director of Regulatory Services said that this is an exiting partnership project and that, "while there is still considerable detail to be worked out ..... the funding will pay mainly for project management, staffing and associated costs with Derbyshire Dales - which has a relatively high proportion of older properties in the private rented sector - being the lead authority".

Amber Valley's Head of Housing and Growth, David Arkle, said that, collectively, the three authorities wanted to raise the profile of "successful enforcement, changing expectations and driving improvement in pilot areas and beyond" whilst building up an evidence base of "effective approaches to enforcement" and then sharing best practice.

For his part Cllr. Paul Maginnis, Erewash Council's Lead Member for Health and Wellbeing, said the funding will help "to build an understanding of what is needed to bring private rented sector properties up to the Decent Homes Standard".

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