The past year has continued to be a challenging year for all housing associations including City West. We’ve made sure that supporting our customers and improving your homes is at the heart of what we do. Our new look Annual Review shows you our highlights over the past year, including completing our first new build homes in Little Hulton, providing skills and employment opportunities locally and our continued commitment to improving services and your neighbourhoods.
The opening of our new office at 52 Regent Street, Eccles, enables our customers greater access to our services and a wider range of facilities. Throughout this review we have highlighted our ‘Goals’ for the next 12 months. What we aim to achieve includes the opening of Amblecote Gardens our Extra Care scheme, introducing ‘Bright Futures’, and a commitment to providing more much needed housing. Finally, we hope you enjoy reading our new look Annual Review, we would love to hear what you think, please fill in our feedback form at the end of this report.
Compare the targets we set ourselves last year to see how we have actually performed.
See how we compare against other housing associations in the country. (This is shown when we have access to this information).
High quality, cost-effective services which our customers want. Look out for our top VfM successes.
Your opinions and ideas are invaluable to help us improve services.
We devised ACORN which is our approach to customer involvement and our way of ensuring customers continue to be at the heart of everything we do.
As involved as you want to be
Challenging what we do
Opportunities for all
Representing your community
Nurturing new ideas
Look out for our Goals icon to see what we aim to do in 2014/15.
Work to all Ladywell Green blocks was completed in 2013, this included:
College Croft internal apartment works are now completed and work to the communal areas and external cladding is well underway.
To begin work on the next high rise block in Eccles,
Southway
We have transformed 8 of our over 55s accommodation schemes with a further 4 currently being refurbished.
Our first purpose built, modern Extra Care scheme will enable older and vulnerable customers to live independently in their own homes. This will include care and support services on site to manage the smooth running of Amblecote Gardens and support the residents living there.
We will establish staffing and services at Amblecote Gardens and promote a vibrant scheme with a range of activities and social opportunities for customers.
Via our subsidiary maintenance company, City West Works, he have
Our
award winning
CHANGE YOUR
CHOICES
programme continues to offer support to young people to encourage them to make better choices. Results have shown a reduction in agency involvement, predominantly Police and Social Care, with all participants aspiring to have a ‘good job’ in a specific career.
Click to Watch our Change Your Choices video
National award through SLCNG* for project of the year.
*Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group
We achieved 10 Compliance Plus ratings for going over and above the standard which focuses on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude.
We were praised for excelling in areas including delivering a wide variety of community projects, using customer feedback to improve services, social accounting and tackling ASB.
Awarding the Living Wage is a step in the right direction to maintaining staff engagement, retaining skills within the business and reducing turnover.
To maintain the Living Wage across City West employees’ salaries.
We will also be working with our partners to ensure that staff who regularly work in our premises are paid the Living Wage.
Customers and City West staff members submitted over 100 nominations to recognise those members of our neighbourhoods who go above and beyond in their contribution to the community. The winners were chosen by our independent judging panel. This year we combined the Awards Ceremony with our Customer Conference Party with over 250 customers gathering to celebrate City West’s 5th birthday.
The event was planned and organised with the support of customers from the Customer Conference Group.
City West Housing Trust has purchased 78 homes in Salford from Great Places Housing Group. In addition, we have also acquired 5 empty homes and refurbished them to bring them back into use. These properties, in Little Hulton, are at the heart of our neighbourhoods and will benefit from the same first class service that we already provide to other homes in the area.
We’ve been working up the environmental schemes ready for delivery in 2014-15.
These include planned environmental schemes to maintain or replace boundaries (walls, fences, driveways etc) across 4 neighbourhoods, with work across low rise blocks also continuing.
Customers involved at all stages through environmental steering group and surveys.
From our new offices customers benefit from better access to a wider range of City West services and community facilities. A key feature will be a ‘no queue’ policy, with knowledgeable staff on hand to answer enquiries. Staff working in the community will also have access to ‘hubs’ in your local area where they can call in and work from.
The Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 brings a number of changes to the tools and powers available to organisations that tackle anti-social behaviour. This year we will increase our awareness and knowledge of the new tools and powers which we will then share to staff and customers.
Rent increases are set in accordance with Government guidance which is based upon achieving “target rents” based on property value and local earnings.
Rent is set in accordance with Government guidance (RPI*) + 0.5% + £2 > RENT CAP
The Government formula is based upon achieving “target rents” based on property value and local earnings.
View our financial information on income and expenditure, including our value for Money statement.
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