A housing association which has thousands of tenants in the Eastern region has been slammed by a social housing regulator for failing to meet suitable standards.

Circle Housing has been hit with a regulatory notice by watchdog The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), for breaching the regulator's Home Standard and for causing potential for serious harm to tenants.

The problems were with the company's repairs and maintenance service covering 13,000 homes in London, but, through Circle Housing Wherry, the organisation also has 7,200 tenants in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire.

A spokesman said: 'We acknowledge the HCA's findings and are taking this matter extremely seriously.

'We would like to reassure local residents that the HCA's investigation was prompted by our service in some parts of London, and does not affect Circle Housing Wherry.

'We know that repairs is the single most important service that we offer our residents and we continue to focus on this for all of our customers. In Circle Housing Wherry 97pc of repairs are completed on time and we have strong levels of customer satisfaction.'

The HCA has said it is monitoring Circle Housing's recovery plan. A spokesman said: 'The regulator will consider in the light of performance against the recovery plan what, if any, further action to take.'

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