The homes it inherited from West Norfolk Council were mostly outdated and shabby and turning them around takes time.

The council's hands had been tied when it came to the ability to invest in the houses. Its ability to build new homes, which need less maintenance and therefore generate more income, had been blocked and it was not allowed to borrow money to upgrade its existing homes.

Then the Government drew up a list of must-haves for council-owned houses, including fairly low aspirations such as a kitchen no older than 25 years and bathroom of no more than 30 years old. It became apparent the majority of council houses in West Norfolk (67 per cent to be precise), were not even close to meeting it, and the natural conclusion was that they would end up being handed over to an outside body.

Where the council was not allowed to borrow the huge sums of cash needed to upgrade the homes – £73 million as it turned out – to a fairly basic level, billed the 'decent homes standard', the new registered social landlord Freebridge, could.

And so it began. Since Freebridge took over the 6,852 West Norfolk Council homes in April 2006, more than 800 new kitchens and 640 new bathrooms have been fitted.

Almost 700 homes have been rewired, and more than 1,400 have had new heating systems installed. In a package of works requested by tenants, but not included in the "decent homes standard", 3,435 ultra-secure external doors have been fitted.

Freebridge chief executive Tony Hall said: "Meeting our commitment means one new kitchen being fitted every two-and-a-half hours for six years. When you think about the potential for things to go wrong and the machinery that needs to be in place to do that, it is enormous."

And as the organisation's housing director Christopher Smith points out, when you consider that kitchens are just one of many elements of the programme, which includes all those things already mentioned plus much more – windows, external chimney work, fascias and the rest – it brings home the level of the task.

Under its own tests and measures tenant satisfaction is consistently lower than Freebridge wants it to be, coming in at between 70 and 77 per cent after recent questionnaires, instead of the 87 per cent it aims for.

Mr Smith accepts one of the reasons for that is to do with day-to-day repairs and maintenance, which creates a challenge in a climate of trying to do so much programmed refurbishment. Work is under way to turn things around regarding repairs. Results are improving but targets are still not consistently met.

Freebridge has had to redefine what it grades as an emergency repair – requiring attention the same day – and what it sees as routine, which can wait up to a month. In the first year it was treating 40 per cent of repair requests as emergency, a long way from the industry norm of 24 per cent.

Mr Smith concedes that change is not something that translates naturally into creating happy customers. Where the organisation is still ironing out its repairs issues, the refurbishment programme is on track.

Freebridge has had great successes in tackling backlogs of works to make homes accessible for disabled people and is still battling unforeseen problems with inadequate electrical infrastructure that means it has to fund new £40,000 sub-stations in order to install new programmable heating systems in some rural homes.

Every Freebridge tenant can easily find out when their area is due to get window, door and heating upgrades, with all those that currently fall short of the standard due to be done by 2012.

Midday supervisor at Lynn's St Michael's Primary School, Mrs Diana Grange (46) lives in Metcalf Avenue, South Lynn, with daughter Annaliese (ten) and has had her had her home rewired and a new kitchen and bathroom installed. She said: "It's fantastic."

After 2012 Freebridge's refurbishment work will not end. It will return to the homes where components were not old enough to qualify for an upgrade when the programme began but have hit the age within the six years it has taken to complete it. It is also then that Freebridge will start to address some of the even bigger issues it faces.

Mr Hall is already considering the future of Lynn's Hillington Square, for instance. Should it stay or should it go? It promises to be a long-running debate, which, he assures, tenants and householders will be at the heart of.