News

Over the next few weeks, we will be reintroducing visits by the Debt Team to provide face to face intensive support to people who need help with their rent account.

As you may already be aware we are pleased to have reintroduced a number of our services over the last few weeks and this is a great step forward for us, marking the return of some normality for you and our employees. I appreciate that many of you will still be nervous about welcoming people into your home but I can assure you we will only do so safely and have introduced additional safety and hygiene measures to keep you and our employees safe. Whilst we may be seeing the opening of pubs and restaurants across the district, we are aware that for many people it will be some time before they feel able to return to every day life. For some this may be down to nervousness around the virus, and for others it may be a result of the impact the pandemic has had on work and finances. For those of you who have been impacted in this way I would like to encourage you to get in touch. We have a range of services available including Employment Advisors who can help if you are currently unemployed, facing unemployment or looking for another job. They can provide great advice and support, whatever your situation. For anyone who is worried about money, we have a number of support services including Cash Wise who can help with budgeting, benefits and accessing financial help or food parcels. Our Debt Team are also available to provide support if you are concerned about paying your rent. If you are worried, please don’t suffer in silence. Contact us and we will discuss which of our services can make life a little easier.  

Housing Association, WDH, has secured funding to build over 5,000 new homes, more than double what was originally planned and deliver its Business Strategy with the help of partners Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Santander and The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC).

For those of you who braved the high street this week, you may have seen that, whilst we didn’t have queues to compete with Primark, our Hubs and Service Access Points (SAPs) were open. As I am sure you can appreciate, this is not a decision we have taken lightly. We put a lot of careful consideration into how we could open safely and ensure that both you, our customers, and our employees are safe.

Firstly, I’d like to thank all of you who took the time to give us your feedback through our recent tenant survey. We are using your feedback to prioritise the remobilisation of our services. As I said in my message last week, we will be starting to reopen our Hubs and Service Access Points across the district shortly, so that those of you who need to speak to us face to face can do so, but in a safe environment. Some of the other things you said were important to you included our grounds maintenance service, which returned last month and is now operating a full service, and our repairs and maintenance service. Whilst we have been focused on carrying out emergency repairs only throughout the lockdown period, we are now looking at how we can reintroduce essential repairs and maintenance services in a way that is safe for both our customers and our employees. We hope to resume essential repairs and maintenance later this month and appreciate the patience and understanding you have shown.

From Sunday 14 June until Friday 19 June 2020 we will be carrying out a major system upgrade.

As our Prime Minister announces further measures to relax the lock down we have all found ourselves in over the past months, at WDH we are continuing to look at ways that we can continue to reintroduce services safely and gradually. I asked last week for your feedback on what you think we should prioritise first. Which services do you think need to be made available to you sooner rather than later? There is still the opportunity to give us your feedback by completing this short, five question survey. I hope you will share your views with us so that we can make sure that we get it right. Complete the survey now.

As we continue to find ourselves in these unrecognisable circumstances, I want to let you know that we are listening and your safety and security is at the forefront of everything that we are doing here at WDH. As we are now looking to the future and beginning to bring some of our services back into action, I’m keen to gather your views.

It may come as welcome news for many of you that our Prime Minister has announced that we can spend a little more time outside and that we can travel a little further afield. However, I know for many it makes things a little more confusing. What I can assure you of, is that we are continuing to follow the guidance that is coming from Government in everything we do. That means we are adhering to social distancing and using the correct personal protective equipment (PPE), where needed, but we are also pushing ahead to resume as many services as we can as soon as it is safe to do so.

Today we are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of VE Day. We had a fantastic response to our call out for people’s VE Day memories! Lots of people were keen to share their celebrations from 1945, war time memories, recipes and more with us!