A review into council housing has revealed that some properties are “unsafe” and breach regulatory standards.

Some of Adur District Council’s housing stock was found to be lacking in proper health and safety equipment.

The issues included not having up to date fire, electrical and asbestos safety checks and not having smoke alarms.

The council also did not have the data to confirm its properties met the decent homes standard.

Adur District Council has since referred itself to the regulator and suggested that because of these issues, it could be in breach of the national home standard.

The regulator has now written to the council to confirm that it is indeed in breach of the home standard.

The council will now work with the national social housing regulator to tackle health and safety issues in its homes.

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“Everyone living in our properties deserves to have a good, safe and secure home and we are committed to working with the regulator and our residents to make this a reality,” said Councillor Carson Albury, Adur's cabinet member for Adur homes and customer services.

“I'm grateful to the regulator for the speed with which it has reviewed our referral and we welcome its scrutiny as we work to resolve our issues.

“We have been, and will continue to be, open and transparent with the regulator about the challenges that have developed in our social housing.”

The council says it understands the work that needs to be done and has created a new programme of health and safety checks and property surveys.

Much of the housing managed by the council was built more than 50 years ago and needs a lot of investment to bring it up to standard.

The council has blamed years of rent restrictions imposed by the government which it says mean there has been, and continues to be, insufficient funding to pay for the work required in Adur.

The council accepts that this has means it has not invested and improved its homes in the way it should have done for a number of years.