Spotlight on Bridgend summer 2014

SPOTLIGHT ON

BRIDGEND ISSUE 6 | SUMMER 2014

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Anne’s Introduction Welcome to the Summer 2014 edition of Spotlight on Bridgend.

This edition features news about our work in Bridgend, as well as across the whole of Wales.

The last 12 months have been extremely busy at WWH. We are delivering our largest new build programme for several decades and have just passed the first anniversary of many of the UK Government’s welfare reforms. The economy is turning the corner and 2014 is shaping up to be a much more positive year than those of recent.

We have helped our residents cope with the changes to benefits and avoided our worst fears of many people falling into debt. We have bolstered the number of frontline staff to be able to offer more support to residents at this time and our latest resident satisfaction survey shows that this is well received.

Our service offer continues to grow from debt and money advice, help

with energy bills to hot lunches provided by Castell Catering. We are listening to our residents so that they shape what we do and how we do it.

Our business has changed in recent years so we are now a Group of companies with three subsidiaries focusing on maintenance, development and social enterprise and employment.

We have changed to make ourselves more efficient and use the money we have saved to build even more affordable homes. We have increased the scale and range of our new build programme in response to the growing need for good quality, well designed and affordable homes to buy and rent.

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Wales & West Housing Group Structure

Finally, I am very pleased to report that according to Sunday Times Best Companies we not only retained our status as the top ranked not-for-profit organisation in Wales, but in fact moved up two places to be at No 5 in the whole of the UK. With more than 800 not-for-profit organisations entering the Sunday Times Best Companies accreditation process we are very proud indeed of our continued success, which is a

testament to our hard working and dedicated staff.

To conclude, I hope that this briefing will help to keep you up to date our work in your area and beyond. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch at any time with your ideas and comments about any aspect of our work.

Anne Hinchey, Chief Executive Wales & West Housing Group

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Our £150m build programme

continues apace WWH expanded its development programme several years ago and 2013 saw a further increase in the number of homes completed.

Across Wales 213 homes were provided for social rent and three for sale as ‘low cost home-ownership’ options. Nikki Cole is WWH’s Head of Development and said with housing needs at critical levels, we are being asked for housing from a broader range of people than ever before.

Even with the housing marketing picking up, many people are still unable to buy or afford to rent. Our development strategy will see WWH build homes for social rent, affordable rent, sale and low cost home ownership.

programme to provide more than 1,000 homes.

We are actively looking for development sites and our Board has approved a five year £150m build

For more info please go to: www.wwha.co.uk

2014 is shaping up to be an even bigger year. WWH is on site or about to start in 9 locations and hope to complete over 550 new homes, many through the Welsh government’s innovative HF Grant initiative. We have built credible expertise as developing organization at as specialist housing for vulnerable people, social housing as well as extra care.

Computer-generated image of the new development at New Road, Porthcawl, Bridgend

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Breakdown of WWH completions per local authority area in 2013 is as follows: Coed y Castell, Bridgend

23 social rented scheme

Brython Drive, Cardiff & Ty Gwyn, Cardiff

9 intermediate rented and 3 Low Cost Home Ownership & 4 intermediate rented

West Shore, Conwy Denbighshire

12 social rented

Llys Jasmine, Flintshire

63 extra care

Vulcan House, Merthyr Tydfil

15 social rented

Cwmfalldau, Powys

9 social rented

Rivulet Road & Kingsmills Road, Wrexham

78 social rented and Hightown Community Resource Centre 0

Vale of Glamorgan

0

Number of homes under development as at December 31st 2013: • Maesgwyn & New Road, Bridgend – 28 social rented & 40 social rented • Elm Street, Cardiff – 10 retirement housing • Flint House & Glan y Don, Flintshire – 33 retirement housing & 58 social rented • Quakers Yard, Merthyr Tydfil – 17 social rented • Kingsmills Road & Rivulet Road, Wrexham – 50 social rented & 20 social rented • Townmills Road, Vale of Glamorgan – 5 intermediate rented

WWH Development staff outside Llys Jasmine Extra Care/Dementia Care Scheme , Flintshire

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The ‘bedroom tax’

and welfare reform

April 2014 saw the first anniversary of the introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’ and ongoing implementation of several other welfare reforms. The changes have had a major impact on many of our residents and our strategy to help people cope with the changes has been very effective.

More than 800 of WWH’s residents saw their housing benefit reduced in April 2013 and 12 families had their benefits capped by the end of September 2013. Despite lots of letters and articles in our residents’ magazine, In Touch, and on our website, people were not prepared for the changes.

We took the step of visiting everyone who we thought might be affected, over 1,000 residents. Having face to face meetings with everyone has been crucial to our success in helping people to cope.

Shayne Hembrow, Deputy Chief Executive, explains: “We have tried to strike a balance between supporting residents and making sure that rent was paid. It has proved important to know the ‘won’t payers’ from the ‘can’t payers’. We will do all we can to help those that engage and make the effort.

WWH has done the following: • Invested over £180,000 per year in Tenancy Support Officers. Seven new posts were created and recruited to directly help residents.

• WWH has helped people increase their income by £780 per year through accessing benefits and grants, renegotiating debt and improving financial management.

• Over 100 people have moved to a more suitable home, where one was available • 85% of people are now paying their rent in full, up from 50% in May 2013.

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Most people have chosen to stay in their homes. Some because this is the community they have always been a part of, and they don’t want to move children to different schools, or they are close to where they work.

For others, they are unable to move because there are no smaller homes to move to.

For some of our residents, the chances are even more difficult. Disabled residents living in homes that have been sustainably adapted for their needs cannot easily move and have no guarantee of getting adaptations on a future property.

We also published a research paper on this problem and lobbied the Government to change the rules and exempt disabled residents in adapted homes.

Our findings were shocking with a potential cost of ÂŁ40m to the public purse in Wales and we and our partners at Community Housing Cymru have been actively lobbying MPs, AMs and other stakeholders to campaign for the UK Government to change this policy.

For more information please go to: http://www.wwha.co.uk/About-Us/ News/Pages/Public-money-set-to-bewasted.aspx Such has been the impact of the data in our report that it has been used extensively by those campaigning against and reporting on the impact of welfare reform in Wales including the Parliamentary Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and plenary sessions in the Senedd.

Resident Judith Parker lives with daughter Emma, 21, and son Luke, 17 in a WWH purpose-built bungalow in Caerau, Cardiff

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We’re the top not-for profit

firm in Wales - again!

It has been a particularly successful six months for WWH in terms of awards and accreditations.

In February the company has been rated the top not-for-profit firm in Wales for the third year running by the Sunday Times Best Companies process, which placed Wales & West Housing 5th in the UK overall. Under the same process WWH also retained the coveted gold standard three stars Best Companies accreditation.

Last autumn WWH was also named in 24 Housing’s inaugural Top 50 Affordable Landlords in the UK list, ranking at 42nd.

Vulcan Court, the redevelopment of historic Vulcan Brewery in Merthyr Tydfil, has just won Small Development

of the Year in the prestigious UK Housing Awards 2014, and was also named as one of Inside Housing’s inaugural Top 50 Affordable Housing Developments.

Llys Jasmine, WWH’s pioneering extra care and dementia care development in Mold, North Wales, was also shortlisted in the Large Development of the Year category of the UK Housing Awards.

Finally, we took first place in the Innovation in Renewables category in the UK Energy and Environment Awards 2014.

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Growth of

Connect24 For the past 15 years we have been responding to Emergency Alarm activations for our own residents and providing a 24 hour / 7days a week telephone service dealing with the full range of housing management issues.

Since 2004 we have been delivering these services for other housing associations across Wales, and in the past year have crossed the border into England.

in our business is pleasing we are mindful of the need to deliver the same quality service and continue our good responsive working relationship with all our clients.

Since 2012 working under the Group sub-brand of Connect24 we are very pleased to be able to report dramatic growth in this part of our business in the last six months with us winning no less than eight new contracts with seven different organisations.

Recently we have purchased a lone working monitoring system so will soon be able to offer this new service to both established and new clients again under WWH’s Connect24 subbrand.

Our Connect24 service now monitors emergency alarm activations for 7,700 households across Wales and answer out of hours telephone calls for 50,000 households.

Although this increase

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Below is a summary of Connect24’s contracts:

Organisation

Service delivered by WWH Connect24

Abbeyfield Housing Society Wales Bron Afon Community Housing Charter Housing Association Derwen Housing Association Elim Housing Association Grwp Gwalia Hafal Hafan Cymru Mid Wales Housing Association Newport City Homes

Emergency alarm/ Telecare Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Emergency alarm/ Telecare Emergency alarm/ Telecare and Out of hours telephone Emergency alarm/ Telecare Emergency alarm/ Telecare Emergency alarm/ Telecare and Out of hours telephone Out of hours telephone Emergency alarm/ Telecare Out of hours telephone Emergency Alarm/ Telecare

Newydd Housing Association Pennaf Housing Group Tai Calon Temp2Perm Valleys 2 Coast Housing Wates Private individuals

If you want to learn more about the services we provide please contact: Cate Dooher, Head of Support Services on 02920 415386 or cate.dooher@wwha. co.uk Christine Bowns, CSC manager on 02920 415341 or christine.bowns@wwha. co.uk

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Castell Ventures

- a new social enterprise Castell Ventures is a new company, part of the Wales & West Housing Group dedicated to creating more social investment and enterprise in communities across Wales. Anne Hinchey, WWH Group Chief Executive and Chair of Castell Ventures, explains why it was created.

“Communities need strong and responsible, ethical companies that are willing to put customers and service first, and care about the communities in which they operate. They need companies that buy locally, work locally and employ locally so that investments and profits stay within the community.”

Anne goes on to say: “Castell Ventures will have many dimensions and provide a range of services and products that our residents and communities tell us they need. It will create employment and training opportunities, and support residents to realise their full potential.”

The first division is Castell Catering. It was established in October last year to provide hot meals for older people in our extra care schemes and the wider community. Our work with Age Connect North East Wales and our new extra care schemes highlighted the need for hot meals services and Flintshire County Council were also keen to explore

the creation of a social enterprise to create more employment and training opportunities.

Castell Catering has given jobs to 15 people and is now serving more than 1,000 delicious hot meals a week.

Wherever possible ingredients are sourced locally and feedback from customers have been fabulous.

For more information on Castell Catering, please contact 0800 052 2526.

You can also visit www.wwha.co.uk

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Annual Report 2013 - strong, sustainable and here for the long term

Our Annual Report and Financial Statements 2013 has now been published showing that 2013 was a great year for the group.

With a turnover of £40m the Group made a surplus of £8.5m which was re-invested to support a spend of £27m on improvements such as kitchens, bathrooms and 213 new homes.

As a not for profit social business, no share dividends were paid or bonuses awarded, instead all money went to services for residents and to support communities. Delivering value for money for residents and partners is at the heart of the way we run our business.

Tony Wilson, Finance Director, explains: “Our strategy to bring more services in-house, control costs better and remove waste has been very successful. We have radically redesigned services to focus more on achieving value for residents and this has made us more efficient and able to reinvest more resources for the benefit of our communities.”

To see a copy of the report go to: http://www.wwha.co.uk/AboutUs/Corporate-Information/Pages/ Corporate-reports.aspx

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Cambria

Maintenance Services

Cambria maintenance Services continues to go from strength to strength and has now almost tripled in size since we set it up in 2010.

At the start of 2013 we extended our services to North Wales which means that Cambria now provides reactive maintenance services to all of our properties across the whole of Wales.

We are extremely proud of this achievement, and of the fact that Cambria employs more than 100 staff and is also training several apprentices.

Our vision is for Cambria to continue to grow and increase its workload.

Undoubtedly Cambria has helped us make substantial efficiency savings, with ÂŁ1.1m saved since its inception in 2010. This is equivalent to 330 kitchens, 380 bathrooms or 21 new grant funded homes. We can report too that Cambria has undertaken 24,500 repairs in 2013 alone, as well as refurbishing 228 kitchens and 466 bathrooms.

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Supporting employment and training opportunities The WWH Group is committed to supporting as many work and training opportunities as it can throughout its various areas of business.

Throughout 2013, WWH has supported 58 apprenticeships, achieved more than 13,500 training hours and maintained an average of 83.75% regarding the use of local labour and supply chains.

We have also been successful in providing work and training opportunities through the Go Wales programme and one former scheme participant – Libby Price - has gone on to gain full-time employment as the manager of our new community resource centre in Hightown, Wrexham.

Another example of a successful work placement has seen University of Glamorgan Events Management student Lisa Williams working voluntarily with the PR & Marketing team. Lisa helped to raise more than £9,000 in sponsorship for WWH’s flagship Making A Difference Awards in October 2013.

Finally, construction, design and management student Jack Donald, from Leeds university, who gained a voluntary work placement with our North Wales-based development team, is now being paid for his contribution such is the quality of his work.

‘Making a difference to lives, homes and communities’ is our mission and we look forward to building upon the successes of 2013 with further significant support for work, employment and training opportunities across Wales.

Pictured is student Jack Donald (left) with Craig Sparrow, WWH Development Manager

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Reported anti-social

behaviour down by 50% In 2013 we reviewed the way we approached anti social behaviour and since then have completed a radical overhaul of our system.

Our new customer-centred approach has seen reported cases of ASB and nuisance behaviour drop by a huge 50% - from 1260 reported incidents in 2012 to 625 in 2013.

Empowering residents to make informed decisions, encouraging and assisting residents to find lasting solutions, and, assisting residents to sustain their tenancies by putting relevant support in place have been the bedrock of our success to date.

Bucking the trend with evictions A further development about which we are extremely pleased is the drop in our figures for evictions.

Recently the media reported a rise in the number of evictions of social housing tenants, in particular after the introduction of welfare reforms.

However, in complete contrast, WWH is bucking this particular trend.

In 2006 we evicted 3 households for anti social behaviour and 46 for rent arrears, a total of 49 evictions.

In 2013 we evicted 6 households for anti social behaviour and 10 for rent arrears, totalling just 16 evictions.

These figures represent a drop of 67% over a seven year period.

Lynnette Glover, Head of Housing at WWH, attributes this drop to a ‘complete change in our culture which has seen us put the needs of our customers first. We work hard to help people to keep their tenancies with eviction as the last resort. Our new approach includes innovative rent panels In which persistent non-payers are given a significant last chance to address their problems and make a lasting arrangement which will tackle their arrears and these have been praised by the judiciary in Wales.’

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WHQS and tackling

fuel poverty We have now met the Welsh Housing Quality Standard and our enduring focus continues to be tackling fuel poverty, helping to make homes warmer and reduce bills.

At Wales & West Housing we are committed to tackling fuel poverty as well as making our properties as environmentally friendly as possible.

Here is a snapshot of some of the work we have undertaken in recent months to these ends: • The vast majority of our properties have been insulated ( cavity walls and loft) • We have made 600+ fuel switches to gas central heating at a cost of approximately £1.5 - £2m • We have spent approximately £1.3m on existing stock, completing: 34 ground source heat pump

retrofits 49 air source heat pump retrofits with remote monitoring and control • We will be undertaking 4 whole house smart energy system retrofits (planned for May 2014 in partnership with Cardiff and Glyndwr Universities (part of the SOLCER project) • We were winners in the Renewables Innovation category in the 2014 UK Energy and Environment Awards • Our residents at Western Court retirement scheme in Bridgend were also winners of the UK Sustainable Tenants of the Year Award 2014

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Supporting the Trussell Trust and foodbanks across Wales Earlier this year the Board of Wales & West Housing donated £5,000 to the Trussell Trust, the organisation behind foodbanks across Wales.

Representatives of the Trussell Trust and supporters of Merthyr Cynon Foodbank met WWH Chief Executive Anne Hinchey at Ty Pontrhun retirement scheme in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, to receive the cheque.

WWH, which manages more than 9,500 affordable homes in 12 local authority areas across North, Mid and South Wales has been working closely with the Trussell Trust and foodbanks across Wales for the past year. WWH operates foodbank collection points in many of its retirement schemes across Wales, as well as in their offices in Cardiff and Flint.

Tony Graham, manager from Trussell Trust Wales, said, “I would like to add our grateful thanks to Wales & West Housing for their generous donation which will allow us to enhance the vital work our foodbanks do across Wales. As people in Wales find their circumstances becoming more difficult the Trussell Trust welcomes our partnership with Wales & West Housing and their recognition of the challenges that many people across our country are facing.”

Across Wales WWH staff and residents have donated more than 640kg of food to foodbanks in Flintshire, Wrexham, Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan, Bridgend as well as Merthyr Cynon in the past 12 months.

L-R: Karen Lewis, WWH Scheme Manager, Cleide Correia, Tony Graham and Anne Hinchey

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Running the London Marathon

for Stroke Association Wales WWH Housing Officer Andrew Pritchard ran the 2014 London The new Hightown Community Resource Centre Marathon, raising more than ÂŁ3000 in aid of Stroke Association Wales.

Andy, who works in the Bridgend area, was motivated to enter the race by seeing at first hand the devastating effects of a stroke after his grandmother suffered a series of attacks.

Congratulations to Andy on completing this, his first marathon, in an impressive four hours, three minutes and 26 seconds and if you would like to donate you can still do so, post-event at his Virgin Money Giving page: www.virginmoneygiving.com/ AndrewPritchardLondonMarathon 2104

Ongoing development works at Kingsmills Road, Hightown, Wrexham Left: The Polish community in Hightown celebrate Christmas at the new HCRC

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New developments in

the county borough

Developing new homes to meet local need is a major priority for WWH and in the past three years we have completed 85 new homes in the county borough. We are actively working with BCBC to identify suitable new sites and are working on developers on potential proposals for these sites.

Bryncethin sees first development in Wales completed under new WHFG We are proud to be the first housing association in Wales to complete a social housing development, in partnership with Bridgend County Borough Council, using funding from the new Welsh Housing Finance Grant (WHFG).

Twenty eight new affordable homes have been built in Clos Maesgwyn, Bryncethin, Bridgend, of which 15 were funded through £813k from the WHFG – an innovative funding model that has been developed by the Welsh Government in partnership with social housing providers.

The affordable new homes are built on the site of the former Maesgwyn Hospital in Bryncethin.

The development comprises five one

bedroom flats, four two bedroom flats, four two bedroom houses and two three bedroom houses. We also manage a further 13 properties on the same site – five three bedroom houses and eight two bedroom houses - developed under a Section 106 agreement. The contract value was £2.7M for all 28 properties.

All 28 homes were developed by WWH in partnership with the Welsh Government and Bridgend County Borough Council. As a result of the project, apprentices were employed on the site covering a range of trades including bricklaying, plumbing, painting and ground work. Feedback from the first residents at the scheme has been ‘brilliant’.

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On site now at New Road, Porthcawl We are also now on-site at New Road, Porthcawl, building 40 one and two bedroom apartments, again in partnership with Bridgend County Borough Council and using funding drawn from the Welsh Housing Finance Grant.

Contractor Jehu is building the apartments above a new supermarket

for Morrisons on the brownfield site, formerly two homes. The £3.8m build – designed by architects Spring Design - will be homes for rent and low cost home ownership.

The estimated completion date for the scheme is January 2015.

Tenancy Support Officers

- making a difference

Our Tenancy Support Officers (TSOs) continue to help our residents who are struggling financially, and assisting those who have been affected by the bedroom tax, benefit cap and changes to their disability benefit.

Bridgend Council’s response to the welfare reform changes, particularly how it has managed discretionary housing payments, has made the task of helping our residents cope with the changes much easier. One of our seven new Tenancy Support Officers, Stuart, works in Bridgend and has worked with more than 100 Bridgend residents in the past 12 months.

As a result of his actions, these residents have saved an average of £15 per week. Our close working with the council has helped 21 people to move to more suitable housing. We have 118 people subject to the removal of the spare room subsidy and with help from Stuart and BCBC, 85% are managing to pay.

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In a recent case, Stuart helped one of our residents in need to get essential goods for her house. The resident, a young expectant mum, had been living in a caravan with two others adults before we were able to offer her a suitable property. However when it came to moving in, unfortunately she had nothing with which to furnish her new home.

Stuart proved to be a crucial source of advice and guidance, helping our resident to apply for a Discretionary Assistance Fund in order to buy basic necessities for the house.

The application was successful, and our resident was able to happily move into her new home with a cooker, washing machine, fridge, freezer, bed, bedding, furniture and pots and pans.

With the assistance of our TSOs, many of our other residents in the Bridgend area and indeed across Wales have been able to access available schemes such as the Warm Home Discount and Discretionary Assistance Fund (as in the above case), get help with their water bills, receive guidance on negotiating with their creditors and apply for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). They have also advised numerous residents on making the best use of their money and making it go as far as possible.

With more and more people becoming affected by changes to the benefits system, we are committed to continuing to do everything we reasonably can to support our residents in getting the help and advice that they need.