WORK to bring Newport City Homes’ flats to Welsh housing quality standards is continuing.

This month work started on installing external aluminium panels on their Greenwood tower block in St Julians. It is one of their three tower blocks in the city and all will get the same treatment.

The other two are Milton Court in Ringland and Hillview in the Gaer. The aluminium panels will make the buildings far more energy efficient and have 125mm thick rockwool insulation to keep heat in.

It is part of a two-year renovation project that will cost Newport City Homes about £10 million. The final block should be finished by May 2015.

By the time the renovations are complete all flats will have double glazed windows, new electric heating systems and gel core electric panel radiators. The tower blocks’ roofs will also be replaced. Wates Living Spaces, the company undertaking the work, built show flats from November 2012 until February so residents could see how their homes will look.

Then refurbishment work started in March. There are about 95 contractors, most of whom are from South Wales, on the three sites. There are 50 based at Greenwood, 30 at Milton Court and 15 at Hillview.

The project manager for Wates Living Space, Dominic Duerden, said: “We have done a lot of work with Newport City Homes. Before this job we had a massive contract for all their kitchens and bathrooms for hundreds of tenants.”

Newport City Homes said residents in about 175 homes have been temporarily moved out to other properties.