A SENIOR boss from Dave Wells said it is undergoing a massive internal restructure to better manage its housing.


The Echo met Alan Kenny at Borthwick road in Boscombe, home to some of the company's most notorious bedsits, which are now being gutted and transformed.


Dave Wells hit the headlines after a Channel 4 investigation into “Landlords from Hell” and came under personal pressure from the housing minister Grant Shapps.


Mr Kenny is the new head of partnerships and previously worked for the YMCA and Bournemouth Churches Housing Association.


He said: “I don't believe I am being used as a smokescreen. I have got to bring change.”.


The firm was founded by Dave Wells and he became synonymous with the company - but things are now changing.


Mr Kenny said the firm has 3,000 properties and has now grown so much that: “We can't have everything coming through one individual.”


He said lines of authority and communications were being restructured and bad news needed to travel faster within the company.

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The firm is now getting “competent and trusted” people into key position, he said, and it is trying to be “proactive”.


Mr Kenny said: “The maintenance team said it's a huge cultural change.


“They said 'we can buy stuff, we can spend time working rather than be pulled off'.”


Mr Kenny said his first talks on restructuring the company were held in July, before the Channel 4 investigation.


But he said: “One thing it did was draw a line and say 'you are as good as your worst property, not as good as your best property'.”


The Echo met Mr Kenny at the house where the undercover Channel 4 reporter stayed - it has now been completely refurbished at a cost of £30,000.


He attic room that was shown as damp and dirty has been repainted, refitted with clean carpets, double glazing and a new sink unit.


Mr Kenny said the firm has fitted double glazing and central heating to four of its 19 properties around Churchill Gardens.


The Echo visited some of these homes last December.


We found families living with no central heating, mouldy bedroom walls, broken cookers and communal bathrooms with no locks.


Some of them will be completely refurbished, some are being split into flats, and plans are as yet unclear for others.


The Echo asked why this work had not been done previously. Mr Kenny said: “I don't know why that wasn't done before.”


He said the improvement should benefit the company by stopping the “churn” of tenants - he said central heating and double glazing was shown to double the time tenants stayed to around one year.


The firm has been cutting its number of bedsits and building new properties far from Boscombe.


Asked whether it had been focusing on new builds to the detriment of its older proprieties, Mr Kenny said he was too new to the company answer.


But he said: “Talking to the Wells family, they don't want people to live in poor conditions..


“But when you have got 3,000 plus properties, to create change is not straight forward, it's not simple.”
Since last 'November or December' the firm has stopped renting out some properties because they are not yet in a fit state - there are 78 off limits at the moment.


However many tenants often complain it is their neighbours within properties that are the biggest problems, so what can the firm do about that?


Mr Kenny said: “If people are through with florid drug addiction problems or are clearly on the game, we need to pick up on that quicker.”


The firm is also trying to meet the demands of a new council housing inspection regime..


Mr Kenny stressed: “If we don't get the innards of the organisation correct then everything else is temporary behaviour - it doesn't last.


“We must get our internals right.”