Council Requiring Scheme - What are our rights?

[jsmith589]

Hi there, I am looking for a little advice on some work the council intend on doing to my mother’s rented property.
Both my mother and I have lived here for around 20 years. The council recently sent us letter 2 of 2 regarding a rewiring scheme they will be doing soon – our local council is most unorganised, we never got letter 1 of 2 and have had no explanation of exactly what the work will entail. The scheme is for upgrading the power cables inside of our home.
Whilst I welcome this work, as it will make our home safer, some of the neighbours and friends who have had the work done already, tell us it is a very dirty, dusty and big job, with new carpets being ruined and no reimbursement offered.
From what I can see, we will need a total re-wire which is quite substantial and will involve pulling up many floorboards and taking some parts of the wall off to put in new cable in each room.

Some of our upstairs floors have laminate flooring which will break if taken apart, neighbours say the council will be expecting to come in and tear it all out to get to the floor boards.
My question is, can they just come in and move everything out of the way for them to get at what they want. And if so, (I presume they can as it is their house), are they then responsible for putting back and repairing anything they break in the process?
Friends of mine have told me that some councils give you vouchers to go and buy materials to repair any mess they have made, but the vouchers often would not even cover the cost of going to buy the materials. The whole matter is really stressing both my mother and me out and it has not even happened yet. We are so worried our furniture and possessions will be damaged in the process as the works men will need access to every room so we literally have nowhere to put our belongings for safe keeping.
I would not usually post, but after hearing horror stories from the neighbours, I am extremely worried. I myself have some very expensive computer and photographic equipment which is dust sensitive and I literally have only the room it is housed in to store it.

Any help and advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated and in particular our legal standing on this issue. In the past the council have made some real hack job repairs in our home which have been totally unacceptable. I am expecting this work to be similar in quality.

[wales01man]

Re: Council Requiring Scheme - What are our rights?

having worked on council property repairs and upgrading i can assure you that contractors take the utmost care when working in someones home all contractors have to have public liability insurance and try to carry out the work with the mininum of disruption anything of value should be moved out of harms way by you accidents do happen should you find the contractor to be less than professional you should complain there and then to them their company and the council remember electrics in a property are covered by law if you refuse access for the work a contractor can if the council follow procedure condemn the electrical system and even shut it down,Dont get all worked up no doubt people on here will tell the same as me and otheres will disagree but please remember a contractor is doing his job and wants to keep working so its not in their interest to give cause for you to complain.