Lead Councillor for Housing Responds to Criticism

Published on: 23 Jan, 2026
Updated on: 23 Jan, 2026

By Martin Giles

GBC council leader Julia McShane, wearing her hat as lead councillor for Housing, has responded to criticism levelled by an R4GV councillor Maddy Redpath (Castle).

Commenting on the decision to only debate in secret the latest report on the Housing Revenue Account scandal at GBC, involving millions of misspent pounds of taxpayers’ money, ring-fenced for the maintenance of council houses, Cllr Redpath said: “It is council tenants who have suffered and are continuing to suffer by living in sub-standard accommodation. It is shameful. They are owed a proper explanation.”

See: GBC’s Financial Fiasco Faces Scrutiny – But Will Public Be Allowed In?

But Cllr Julia McShane wrote to The Dragon saying: “We take the quality of our housing very seriously and our teams are working hard to deliver improvements across all Council-owned homes.

Cllr Julia McShane

“Our commitment to openness and transparency means we regularly share updates with tenants and leaseholders, and we welcome feedback to help us keep improving. Significant investment has gone into repairs, maintenance, and modernisation programmes to ensure homes are safe, well-maintained, and meet the standards our residents deserve.

“We’ve made real progress in enhancing our housing services as part of a wider improvement journey. These changes reflect our determination to provide good, affordable homes and ensure services are reliable and well run.

“We’ve strengthened internal processes and improved how our housing teams operate, always keeping residents at the heart of everything we do. Their health, safety, and long-term needs remain our top priority.

“These efforts are already making a difference, as shown by our latest Tenant Satisfaction Survey, which reports an 8 per cent increase in satisfaction over the past year. We know there’s still more to do, but I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far and confident that, together, we’ll keep raising standards and delivering the quality our communities deserve.”

Asked by The Dragon to baseline the 8 per cent increase, to allow evaluation, a council spokesperson said: “When we receive the full Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) results from Acuity Research they will be presented to the Housing Operation Board then published on our website. Our previous TSMs can be found on our website.

“ ‘Overall satisfaction’ is the headline tenant perception measure in the landlords’ tenant perception surveys. This measure asks tenants their overall level of satisfaction with the service provided by their landlord, and takes all landlord services into account. In the most recent wave of independent surveys by Acuity Research, it is this result that has risen by 8 per cent.”

The GBC webpage referred to, “Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs),” shows an overall satisfaction level of 61 per cent for the year 2024-2025 (see table below), so an increase of 8 per cent would mean it is now measured at 69 percent.”

The Guildford Dragon NEWS requested an interview with Cllr Julia McShane in December and is still waiting for a response.