Council tenants in Moray could be given garden tools and told to do their own weeding after complaining about the condition of their estates.
The local authority’s communities committee met in Elgin yesterday to discuss its £100,000 budget for carrying out improvements at council housing developments.
Members heard a survey conducted last year revealed that a growing number of tenants were “dissatisfied” with their environment.
The main complaints included the state of roads, paths, play areas, communal patches of grass and dog fouling.
The authority’s head of housing and property, Richard Anderson, said councillors had been asked to agree a new approach to carrying out upkeep work.
But committee chairman George Alexander suggested tenants with gripes about their estates should be asked to take matters into their own hands.
The Forres councillor asked: “Do we do anything to encourage council tenants to help themselves, like providing them with tools that would help them to keep their own estates up to the standards they would like?
“A lot of people want to live in a nice environment and, if the council hasn’t got the resources to do what they would like, they are capable of doing a lot themselves.”
Councillor Anderson said money could be taken from council budgets to provide residents with the equipment to spruce-up their surrounding areas.
He added: “We would need to make sure we don’t lose things, and that materials were appropriately stored.”
The proposed changes to the local authority’s housing estate improvement budget are due to come into effect in 2017-18.
The revised system will go out to consultation today, and members of the public will be able to offer feedback until the end of January.
Councillors also agreed to maintain walkabouts of the region’s council estates every six months, to identify areas in need of improvement.
During the same meeting, members agreed to enhance the financial incentive offered to encourage tenants to downsize from under-occupied council houses.
They currently receive a basic payment of £1,500 plus £400 for each surplus bedroom they give up.
But basic payments will now increase to £1,900 – to try to hit an annual target of 25 downsizing transfers.
