Lewes District Council (21UF) Regulatory Judgement: 15 October 2025
Published 15 October 2025
Applies to England
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Our Judgement
| Grade/Judgement | Change | Date of assessment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | C2 Our judgement is that there are some weaknesses in the landlord delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed. |
First grading | October 2025 |
Reason for publication
We are publishing a regulatory judgement for Lewes District Council (Lewes DC) following an inspection completed in October 2025.
This regulatory judgement confirms a consumer grade of C2. This is the first time we have issued a consumer grade in relation to this landlord.
Summary of the decision
From the evidence and assurance gained during the inspection, we have concluded that there are some weaknesses in Lewes DC delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards and improvement is needed, specifically in relation to outcomes in our Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard, and Safety and Quality Standard. Based on this assessment, we have concluded a C2 grade for Lewes DC.
How we reached our judgement
We carried out an inspection of Lewes DC to assess how well it is delivering the outcomes of the consumer standards as part of our planned regulatory inspection programme. During the inspection, we considered all four of the consumer standards: Neighbourhood and Community Standard, Safety and Quality Standard, Tenancy Standard, and the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard.
During the inspection we observed a Tenants of Lewes District (TOLD) meeting, spoke with tenants, held meetings with Lewes DC including the leader of the council and the portfolio holder for housing, interviewed staff, and reviewed a wide range of documents provided by Lewes DC.
Our regulatory judgement is based on a review of all the relevant information we obtained during the inspection as well as analysis of information supplied by Lewes DC in its regulatory returns and other regulatory engagement activity.
Summary of findings
Consumer – C2 - October 2025
The Safety and Quality Standard requires landlords to have an accurate record, at an individual property level, of the condition of their homes based on a physical assessment of all homes and ensure that homes meet the requirements of the Decent Homes Standard (DHS). Lewes DC has provided assurance that it has accurate, up to date and evidenced information on 77% of its homes and has plans to survey all homes by March 2026. It reported that around 9% of its homes did not meet the DHS and has plans in place to ensure all homes meet this standard.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to identify and meet all legal requirements that relate to the health and safety of tenants in their homes and communal areas. We have assurance that Lewes DC is meeting its obligations in relation to landlord health and safety compliance. We found weaknesses, however, in its strategic oversight and reporting of health and safety compliance remedial actions; Lewes DC is working to improve the consistency of its reporting to address these concerns.
The Safety and Quality Standard also requires landlords to provide an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service for the homes and communal areas for which it is responsible. We saw evidence that Lewes DC is generally delivering repairs in a timely way for its tenants, though we found that there is a backlog of overdue repairs. Lewes DC regularly reviews repairs information at an operational level and has taken steps to improve the integrity of this information. However, we found that senior leaders do not receive sufficient information to fully understand and scrutinise repairs performance, which has led to the timeliness of overdue repairs not being visible. Lewes DC is aware of this weakness and is working to resolve it, alongside improving overall service performance.
The Neighbourhood and Community Standard requires landlords to work with appropriate partners to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing. We gained assurance that Lewes DC works proactively with relevant organisations to deter and tackle ASB and hate crime in its neighbourhoods, including using a range of tools and responses. Lewes DC has several ways for tenants to report ASB and its policy sets out its approach to managing ASB and hate incidents. We saw evidence that Lewes DC is taking steps to improve its communication around ASB and provide greater assurance to senior leaders and tenants through more detailed performance reporting.
In relation to the Tenancy Standard, we found evidence that Lewes DC meets the required outcomes in relation to tenure with a clear tenancy policy and it has recently completed an internal review of its tenancy agreements to ensure they are fit for purpose. It has a proactive programme of tenancy audits and prioritises households on a risk basis.
During the inspection we gained assurance that Lewes DC is committed to treating its tenants with fairness and respect and we observed a positive culture towards tenants. However, we have limited assurance that Lewes DC fully understands the diverse needs of its tenants as it does not have comprehensive information about the characteristics and diversity of its tenants. This restricts its ability to evidence that it is taking action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants. Lewes DC uses the information it has at an individual level to prioritise households with vulnerabilities, but it was not able to evidence that diverse needs inform overall decision making and service design.
We have seen evidence that Lewes DC provides a range of service and performance information to tenants. Lewes DC is using the latest Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) data to understand tenant dissatisfaction and improve services through tenant scrutiny. It shares service and performance information with all tenants through regular newsletters, developed with tenants. However, Lewes DC’s limited understanding of tenants’ needs limits the extent to which it can provide information in the most appropriate format.
The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard also includes the expectation that landlords take tenants’ views into account in their decision making about how landlord services are delivered and communicate how tenants’ views have been considered. Lewes DC gathers tenants’ views in a range of formal and informal ways, and tenants are provided with meaningful opportunities to influence and scrutinise strategies, policies and services through TOLD, the scrutiny panel, its strategic retirement forum and the Virtual 300 online consultation group. We saw evidence that tenant feedback has positively impacted service delivery in a number of areas including the design and procurement process of its future repairs service and Lewes DC’s approach to dealing with damp and mould. Lewes DC told us it recognises the need to increase the diversity of its engaged tenants and it gave examples of actions it intends to take to achieve this.
Landlords must also ensure complaints are addressed fairly, effectively and promptly. We found evidence that Lewes DC has an accessible complaints process, although, responses had not been timely and a high number of complaints had been escalated through the process. We have seen evidence that Lewes DC has sought to better understand what improvements are required through internal and external audits and a tenant scrutiny review of its complaints handling. It has taken steps to address this and has taken action to make improvements. Through our ongoing engagement with Lewes DC we will seek assurance that change has been embedded and is delivering improved outcomes for tenants.
Lewes DC has engaged constructively with us throughout the inspection process, has demonstrated that it understands the issues it needs to address, and is already taking action towards rectifying the weaknesses identified. There is already evidence of progress being made and we have assurance that there is strong organisational commitment to ensuring improved outcomes for tenants. We will continue to engage with Lewes DC as it continues to address the issues set out in this judgement.
Background to the judgement
About the landlord
Lewes DC owns and manages 3,245 homes. It has two buildings 11-18m in height and one building at least 18m in height.
In 2016, Lewes DC and Eastbourne Borough Council formed a joint management arrangement, creating ‘Homes First’ to manage the housing services on behalf of both councils.
Our role and regulatory approach
We regulate for a viable, efficient, and well governed social housing sector able to deliver quality homes and services for current and future tenants.
We regulate at the landlord level to drive improvement in how landlords operate. By landlord we mean a registered provider of social housing. These can either be local authorities, or private registered providers (other organisations registered with us such as non-profit housing associations, co-operatives, or profit-making organisations).
We set standards which state outcomes that landlords must deliver. The outcomes of our standards include both the required outcomes and specific expectations we set. Where we find there are significant failures in landlords which we consider to be material to the landlord’s delivery of those outcomes, we hold them to account. Ultimately this provides protection for tenants’ homes and services and achieves better outcomes for current and future tenants. It also contributes to a sustainable sector which can attract strong investment.
We have a different role for regulating local authorities than for other landlords. This is because we have a narrower role for local authorities and the Governance and Financial Viability Standard, and Value for Money Standard do not apply. Further detail on which standards apply to different landlords can be found on our standards page.
We assess the performance of landlords through inspections and by reviewing data that landlords are required to submit to us. We also respond where there is an issue or a potential issue that may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards. We publish regulatory judgements that describe our view of landlords’ performance with our standards. We also publish grades for landlords with more than 1,000 social housing homes.
The Housing Ombudsman deals with individual complaints. When individual complaints are referred to us, we investigate if we consider that the issue may be material to a landlord’s delivery of the outcomes of our standards.
For more information about our approach to regulation, please see Regulating the standards.