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Transforming Neighbourhoods Review

Transforming Neighbourhoods Review

Looking back over the last 12 months

Re-housing - We allocated a total of 443 properties last year 362 of these were new lets and 81 were to existing customers who transferred to a new home. It took on average 6.15 weeks to relet a property against a target of 4.5 weeks. We started using www.rightmove. co.uk to promote our empty homes. This has proven to be successful.

Open space maintenance is now being carried out by The Landscape Group who were awarded a five year contract in March 2013. Members of our Tenant Consultative Committee (TCC) and a Green Inspector regularly attend contract meetings to ensure that resident’s views are heard and that complaints are dealt with swiftly, but also that compliments from our customers are passed on. Winter works included an extra hedge cut, tidying the garage sites and maintenance of the shrub beds to improve the overall appearance of our neighbourhoods.

The Landscape Group are keen to be involved with the local community and have reinforced this by judging the garden competition, consulted customers on shrub bed improvements and donated prizes for customer competitions.

In March 2013 the Trusts caretakers completed training in the use of chainsaws enabling them to carry out low level tree work such as crown lifting. A winter programme of work was then completed during which 50 tree surgeries were carried out by our own caretakers instead of contractors saving over £10,000.

Our Green Inspectors help us to monitor the performance of our open Grounds Maintenance Contractor.

This year they all got together to discuss the ways the Trust could improve communication with them and it was decided that audits could be sent by email, the grounds maintenance contractors report would be shared with them there would be an annual meeting for Green Inspectors to attend to share ideas.

The gardens and grounds of our independent retirement apartments (IRA) are maintained under a grounds maintenance contract. Our contract manager and environment team leader attend each IRA residents meeting to answer any questions regarding the grounds maintenance. Our caretaking team are supporting some IRA that require more intensive gardening, particularly with those residents who are keen gardeners and want to make the communal gardens pleasant places to be. We love working with our customers in these apartments and are always looking for new ideas or people who would like to become Green Inspectors.

Communal garden improvement work at our flatted blocks has taken place following an audit in 2012-13. Many of the gardens were overgrown and unsightly so a programme of works was devised that included major horticultural work, landscaping, re-turfing and removal of dead plants and fly tipping. The works have made a marked improvement to the neighbourhoods with many positive comments from our customers and the areas are now regularly monitored through the caretaking flat inspections.

Our Community Assistance Fund (CAF) has approved nine applications for funding for a range of projects including an affordable play scheme, accessible facilities at a football ground and indoor equipment to continue summer sports throughout the winter. This funding has indirectly benefitted our customers and communities in a range of ways including preventing social isolation for parents and preventing anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods.

“The Landscape Group are keen to be involved with the local community and have reinforced this by judging the garden competition...”

Remember if you’d like us to

post this strategy review to

you FREEPOST call us on

01606 813 351 or email

alexandra.myhill@wvht.co.uk.

Or pop into one of our offices

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Transforming Neighbourhoods Review

Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) • Customers satisfied with the outcome of their ASB complaint: 84% our target was 88%• Customer satisfied with our handling of their ASB complaint: 87% our target was 88%• We received 529 complaints of ASB• We’ve designed leaflets for customers about ASB & Witness Support, and Hate-related Harassment• We evicted 3 troublesome tenants under our ‘Starter Tenancy’ policy, avoiding lengthy court cases and high legal fees• We stopped part-funding a Police Community Support Officer for an area of Northwich where customers felt it was no longer needed

Neighbourhood Activities

The areas of Greenfields Park, Glebe Green & Over (GGO) have organised and taken part in a range of activities including:• Drop in sessions, coffee mornings, tuck shop and mum’s & tot’s groups• Environment weeks and Clean Team activity• Greenfields park community garden open day• Seasonal events around Christmas and Easter• Fun Day’s and Games Day’s• Training and workshops• Community allotment work with Incredible Edibles• Promotion of the area through Facebook and new signage• Worked with the Princes Trust who raised funds for improvements and refurbishments to the Greenfields Park bungalow.

The areas of Crook Lane & Wharton Gardens (CLAW) have organised and taken part in a range of activities including:• Drop in sessions, coffee mornings, mum’s & tot’s groups and fundraising events.• Promotion of the area through newsletters, Facebook.• Fun Day’s, Sport’s Day’s and community events.• Negotiated a change in Environmental Improvement funding.• Seasonal events around Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas including a Christmas lights switch on and a return visit from santa following negotiation with Round Table.• Worked with partner agencies to help reduce incidences of bonfire and bonfire nuisance over the bonfire period.

• Built strong relationships with external agencies including the council and local schools.• Helped contractors working on the estate to sign up customers to the new railings programme.• Planned and carried out a successful Dog Fouling Campaign.• Worked closely with the Environment Team on several projects.• Worked closely on a range of initiatives with the local library.

The Greenbank Neighbourhood have organised and taken part in a range of activities including:• Developed the Community Facebook Page and held regular meetings.• Worked with local partners including Mid Cheshire College and the Princes Trust.• Launched a Community Repaint Scheme with CLIC (Changing Lives In Cheshire).• Provided evening youth sessions with The Children’s Society & CWAC Young Peoples Services.• Delivered a Summer Activities Programme.• Hosted variety of fundraising events.• Organised seasonal events around Halloween, Christmas Party and Easter. • Piloted a ‘Breakfast Club’ initiative• Hosted a Bonfire Awareness Event with Cheshire Fire Service

“We evicted 3 troublesome tenants under our ‘Starter Tenancy’ policy, avoiding lengthy court cases and high legal fees...”

How you were involvedWith our customers’ help we’ve adopted new policies on Domestic Abuse and Tenancy Fraud.

Our Domestic Abuse policy has been reviewed and updated with the help of our customers. Our staff have subsequently received training on how to handle reports of domestic abuse.

The Tenancy Anti-Fraud Policy has enabled the Trust to recover three properties which were being illegally sublet, evict two customers who provided false information, and prevent one applicant from obtaining housing. This has freed up accommodation for genuine customers on our housing register.

How You’ve Been InvolvedOur Customer Involvement Group (CIG) helps to inform the Trust’s tenancy management activities and performance measures (with a focus on anti-social behaviour), and we consult those customers on any proposed changes in services.

Looking back over the last 12 months The group met 5 times and looked at the following areas of work: • Reviewed the Tenancy Management Team’s contribution to the 2012-13 Customer Report;• Reviewed the 2014-15 KPI targets; • The closure of a Local Offer relating to Witness Support; • A customer leaflet regarding ASB and Witness Support; • The closure of a customer surgery in Frodsham;• The adoption of new Policies relating to Tenancy Fraud and Domestic Abuse; • The content of the Trust’s new website

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Transforming Neighbourhoods Review

Future plans for 2014-2015The Rehousing team are aiming to improve how quickly we allocate our properties and continue to use Right Move to market properties that are not successfully allocated through Trust Homechoice. They are also looking at ways of encouraging customers to move into our retirement apartments and monitoring the reasons why customers vacate our properties.

Anti Social Behaviour – we are continuing to crack down on anti social behaviour and are planning to:

• Produce a leaflet giving customers information and advice about Domestic Abuse• Update our policy on Mutual Exchanges and Tenancy Changes, to reflect current legislation and make it easier to exchange • Adopt a formal policy saying how we will deal with tenants who let their homes get messy and dirty • Run a publicity campaign to encourage residents to report suspicions of Tenancy Fraud

Open Space Maintenance The Trust have invested in a new wood chipper and root grinder which will allow us to make further future savings through winter 2014/15when dealing with diseased or felled trees in our neighbourhoods. Two of our caretakers have also completed a tree felling course which further increases our capacity to complete tree work in house.

The Green Inspectors are planning to host an annual meeting to put forward ideas for improvement and ways of communicating.

We plan to increase engagement with our community allotment, by encouraging adults and children to get involved with Incredible Edibles who plan to start a Saturday gardening club for local children. They are also planning to establish food workshops based around the food grown at the allotment.

The GGO Getters will be attending more training to increase their knowledge and awareness to confidently run youth clubs in the local neighbourhood.

CLAW (Crook Lane and Wharton Gardens) plan to further reduce the amount of fly tipping in the area, organaise a day out for local children, transform some open space into a natural play-scape, hold a CLAW in bloom competition, continue to fundraise and increase the a mount of Christmas light and have a Christmas tree outside the library.

Greenbank Hub is hoping to increase footfall to the centre and encourage local residents to get more involved with the initiatives that take place there. They are also planning to develop a community newsletter to reach people without access to the internet and residents are also keen to establish a police registered Home Watch scheme.

The events committee is keen to continue with fundraising events that will help support to community and plans to organise a trip to the beach and a Fun Day with the monies raised.

“Residents are also keen to establish a police registered Home Watch scheme...”