Neighbourhoods
We know that your home doesn’t start and end with your front door, and we’re committed to supporting our communities to thrive.
Working with our customers, our partners, our contacts in local authorities and our wider network, we’ve been working hard to listen to you and make a difference in your neighbourhood.
Here’s just a few highlights from 2022-23:
A helping hand
We spent more than £64,000 on 55 communities in 2022-23 to deliver initiatives such as community days and our Clean Sweep project which is aimed at improving areas that customers and our colleagues have identified as needing improvement.
With the help of our contractors, we’ve been able to give some special attention to areas which needed a bit of TLC, benefitting more than 1,600 customers. New equipment, a bit of a tidy-up, repairs, landscaping, bin store improvements, waste removal and even a few new benches were all part of our improvement work during 2022-23.
Take a look at how we helped this community in Bedford:
spent on our communities in 2022-23
Community Investment Grants
We approved 428 applications for our Community Investment grants in 2022-23, totalling around £150,000.
The projects that this funding has supported have reached around 5,000 customers, helping to transform spaces, tidy up communities and provide new facilities for entire neighbourhoods.
One customer, who received some help to replace damaged fencing, said:
“I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your help and support with the grant. I received the news today that £200 has been awarded and was literally in floods of tears with relief.”
worth of Community Investment Grant projects funded
Anti-social behaviour
In 2022-23, our focus has been on a targeted, proactive approach to handling anti-social behaviour, and we have been reaching out to gain a broader view of the issues you’re facing where you live.
Using text message surveys, we’ve been able to quickly find out about the problems customers have reported to us, and work with them to find appropriate action that supports everyone. We sent out around 450 surveys in 2022-23, and the results have helped us to work with customers who have been impacted by ASB and take positive action to resolve it.
Our Scrutiny Panel also completed a review of our approach to ASB. You can find out more about this here.
Mobile Associates
Our team of Mobile Associates was created in 2022 to help us deal with those jobs that need the human touch.
The team, working together with our Customer Partners to support you where you live, take on jobs such as:
- Estate inspections and general risk assessments
- Sourcing communal keys and access information
- Neighbourhood issues e.g. fly-tipping, the management of communal areas and abandoned vehicles
- Tenancy issues e.g. property and garden inspections, subletting and abandoned property investigations
- Rent arrears visits
- Meeting contractors on site
Estate visits to our communities by our Mobile Associates in 2022-23
Sam, one of our Community Champions, said:
“(it was) nice to go walkabout with (mobile associate) Jeffrey. He was very polite, approachable and professional. He took lots of photos and notes.”
Check out this blog by one of our Mobile Associates to find out more about what they do:
Fly-tipping
This year we have taken a proactive approach to tackling fly-tipping in our communities, improving facilities to make it easier for people to use their bins, and prevent misuse.
This has included building new bin stores like this one in Caxton Road, Somerset, which not only has a secure access lock, but has also been fitted with rat-proofing to stop pests from entering.
We’ve also been trialling some new posters in our communities, encouraging everyone to think about how to get rid of their waste responsibly. The posters, are placed in communal areas and offer a link to our website where customers can report fly-tipping. We’re also looking to work with school children in some communities to see how we can expand on this project and drive more behavioural change.
Mutual exchanges
We’ve been listening to your feedback on how we can improve mutual exchanges to make the process of swapping your home easier.
The biggest issue for customers was communication, and we understand that mutual exchanges can be very complex and time-consuming cases to complete, often involving 14 steps that we must go through to swap a home.
To help make this process easier, we’ve been making use of automatic texts that tell you when key steps have been reached, such as receiving documents, so you can get useful information as soon as we have it without having to speak to us or chase for an answer.
This has successfully resulted in improved communication and time saved for both customers and colleagues. We’re now looking at how we can use it in other areas where customers need regular updates during complex issues.
Tenancy sustainment
The work of our tenancy sustainment team is designed to help customers stay in their homes for longer by connecting them with support and projects that enable them to get more out of where they live.
This can cover a range of areas such as financial, wellbeing, employment and more, and our team work hard to build relationships with charity partners across the country.
“Sophie North has been a great help and support to myself when things were at the worst for me . She has arranged a grant with Longleigh for food and fuel vouchers . Her help and communication have been excellent and very prompt. Thank you Sophie xx”