Looking after your home
Looking after your home is a responsibility we share with you as a tenant. Usually, we take care of the structure of your home and essential functions, like hot water and being able to use the loo, while you take care of the DIY jobs and wear and tear. We know that making sure repairs are completed quickly and efficiently is important to you. Our contractor, Mears, are the ones who visit you at home to complete the works and we talk to them every month about the feedback you give us on their service to make sure it stays at the standard we expect.
We had to make some big changes when the government announced the Covid restrictions in March 2020. We had to cancel more than 3,000 appointments and could only accept reports of emergency repairs. These changes had an impact on our repairs performance so when you look at the numbers we didn’t do quite as well as last year, but we’re confident that we made the right choice to protect you, our employees and our contractors from the risk of Covid-19.
Cleaning communal areas
A growing number of you were getting in touch to talk about the cleanliness of communal areas, so in January we wrote to those of you living in blocks with shared indoor spaces about our plans to introduce a new cleaning service. Most of you who contacted us with feedback were positive about the idea so we decided to introduce the service this spring. When Covid-19 hit, we had to adapt our plans but our cleaning teams are now back out in the community helping to keep your communities spick and span.
What’s next for repairs and maintenance?
The impact of covid-19 and the UK lockdown meant that we had to change some of our repairs service standards. We decided to extend the amount of time Mears have to complete a repair while they are working hard to catch up with all the cancelled appointments that Covid-19 caused. We hope that our repairs service will be back to normal this autumn, but we need to be prepared in case the government introduces new safety measures that will impact on our ability to visit you at home.
What you say about our repairs service
"The repair was fixed within an hour and the chat on the website was very helpful"
"Easy online repairs request and quick notification of a repair date"
"They were friendly yet professional, listened while I tried to explain the issue. Checked everything fully then explained what was wrong and what they were going to do to fix it, were also polite and answered any questions in a way I could understand throughout"
"Top marks as my call was answered quickly, handler was very helpful and friendly and my appointment was arranged at a time and date to suit me."