Spending on home improvements is set to restart as soon as covid restrictions are eased.
Almost all council improvement programmes were stalled by West Lothian Council on the first lockdown almost a year ago.
Only essential repairs were carried out and the programmes which has taken the biggest knock were the planned refurbishment especially for internal works including central heating.
Council officers gave a report on revised spending programmes to a meeting of the Services for the Community Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP).
Councillor Andrew McGuire said: “I wonder if someone could comment on the impact covid has had on any repairs that we had hoped to undertake this year and how we hope to address that in future years?”
Graeme Struthers, depute chief executive responsible for housing, said the covid outbreak has had an impact on a number of aspects of the capital spending programme.
“It’s something we’ll monitor as we hopefully move later into 2021. More planned refurbishment, such as the central heating replacement, which is a significant investment, has had the biggest impact.”
Councillor McGuire said: ”Would it be fair to say that the money is sitting there and, as we progress out of covid we would hope that we have the capacity and resources to be able to catch up with the works that we have not been able to do in the past year because of covid?”
Mr Struthers said that when it was appropriate for tenants and for staff, the council would be looking to get people back into buildings to complete refurbishment programmes.
“We’ll be looking to prioritise that,” he added.
A report to the PDSP said: “Expenditure totalling £23.270 million is forecast for the 2020/21 programme. The month 9 projected expenditure represents a net slippage/saving position of £5.971 million against the budgeted resources for 2020/21, mainly due to the ongoing effects and restrictions in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the final outturn position for the year will be reported to Council Executive in June 2021.
“Any slippage or acceleration on projects in the 2020/21 programme will be rolled forward into the revised two year programme, and an updated programme will be presented to Council Executive for approval in June 2021.”
