WEST Dorset District Council is making ‘positive’ progress with land survey searches, a situation that was once branded a crisis.

As reported in the Echo, potential homebuyers were waiting months for land survey searches to be returned, causing housing sales to collapse and a stall in the market.

One estate agent branded the situation ‘the worst in the country’.

A report to go before WDDC’s Audit and Governance Committee states that as of February 19 2017 the number of outstanding searches stood at 466, down from 633 in September 25 2016. This is down 36 percent against the recorded peak from July 1.

The council said that it is worth stressing that these figures represent the total number of searches remaining to be processed, and is not appropriate to refer to it as a backlog.

It added that the current target for turning around searches is 15 working days, which would equate to approximately 180 to 200 searches remaining.

WDDC said that if this amount was excluded from the outstanding number of searches then the reduction in the actual backlog from the recorded peak is around 50 per cent.

For the period from January 22 to January 29, 60 searches were submitted.

WDDC said that the whilst the progress recorded above is positive, it is ‘clearly understood that a key priority remains to reduce the number of outstanding searches as quickly as possible’.

In the report it added that it is also equally recognised that reducing the number of searches to an acceptable level is only of limited benefit if mechanisms are not in place to ensure that it does not recur soon thereafter.

In March last year, councillors were presented with an action plan to address the challenges facing the land charges service. The report states that a temporary land charges officer has been brought in to help tackle the problem.

The committee, which will meet on March 6, is asked to note the report with the update on the issue.

In September the Echo was told by an estate agent that searches were taking 17 weeks, putting people off buying houses in the area.