Spring has arrived, and I hope you’re enjoying the brighter days. 

I’m pleased to share this latest update covering key discussions from our recent Community Voice meeting.  

Our group is made up of myself and other tenants who live in the Fitton Hill area, and we discuss what’s working, what’s not, and what we want to change.  

We work together with ForHousing to take action and signpost to partners when it’s needed.  

Together we understand the importance of listening and learning from tenants – like me and you – about crucial matters affecting our neighbourhood.  

We want to have our voices heard and be a part of influencing what happens in our homes and communities. 

Please read on for all the essential news from our March Community Voice update.  

Helen Wild, Chair of Community Voice

The Community Voice meetings are a great opportunity to share our concerns with ForHousing, and make sure people are feeling safe in their homes and proud of their neighbourhoods.  

The ForHousing team listens to our feedback and works with us, the council, and local partners and organisations to improve our neighbourhoods. 

At our last meeting, we brought up issues with the muddy and uneven pathway leading to Tunns Road towards the school. ForHousing is working with the developer, Countryside, and the council to resolve this.  

Oldham Council also plans to restart a partnership group, where we’ll be able to meet with the council and share our concerns and feedback. This may help address some of the issues we’re experiencing, such as the poor access and water logging on this path. 

We also talked about delays to the St Martin’s play park due to changes in the council structure. Design work is still ongoing, but we’re hoping to see the final plans soon.  

We’ve suggested holding a community fun day to celebrate the park’s opening, and ForHousing is looking into this. We’ll keep you updated so everyone can join in on the fun! 

ForHousing shared updates on the grounds maintenance inspections in Fitton Hill, which look at how well ForHousing is looking after the outdoor spaces, including gardens, paths, and communal areas. While the inspections haven’t happened yet, some are scheduled to take place soon.  

The inspections will take place every three months, but ForHousing would like to carry out these inspections more often in the future. We even talked about potentially involving Customer and Tenant Reviewers with the inspections to help spot areas of improvement. 

We gave feedback on a scrutiny exercise looking at tenant responsibilities, especially around improving how this is communicated to tenants. 

We suggested clearer guidelines to help tenants better understand what’s expected from us, as it can get confusing when understanding the differences between historic and new tenant rights. This is something that ForHousing will work on so that it will be easier to follow in future. 

We also discussed recent incidents involving young people and knives in the area. We’ve agreed to reach out to the police and local MPs to arrange a meeting, with ForHousing’s support. 

Parking issues near the Keswick Avenue and Firtree roundabout are still causing traffic problems, making it difficult for cars and buses to pass through. While ForHousing is exploring ways to resolve this, they’ve asked us to report incidents to the police in the meantime.   

We’re happy to share that ForHousing was named Employer of the Year at this year’s Resolve ASB Awards for their work in keeping communities safer! 

The judging panel praised ForHousing’s Community Safety Team for their commitment to training, their focus on domestic abuse awareness, and their work with external services and agencies.

ForHousing is committed to improving services for tenants by continuously listening to our feedback and learning from our experiences. 

During the meeting, they asked for our feedback on the new way of reporting to the Community Voices. Instead of having over 100 pages of reports, we now get a much shorter report with key headlines that help us to understand key priorities. This makes it easier to understand, and it can be easily supported by dyslexia software.  

ForHousing also shared results from their latest performance report, which collected feedback from tenants on how well they think ForHousing’s services are performing. 

They found that the different ways of collecting feedback can affect how positive or negative a response is. For example, email responses tend to produce negative responses, while face-to-face responses often lead to more positive feedback. 

Because of this, we suggested that telephone calls may be the best way to gather feedback as they get more balanced and varied responses. 

Overall, the performance report showed that 45.1% of tenants are satisfied with how we handle complaints. This shows that ForHousing is making great progress in this area, especially as the national average is 33%.  

You’ll already be aware that Liberty, who carry out repairs and maintenance to our homes, is now under the ownership of Wates.  

In the last update, we shared that you’ll start to see both Wates and Liberty vans in the neighbourhood, with operatives wearing either uniform. 

Since then, we have seen more vans and uniformed staff with the Wates branding in the area. This is good to see! Wates has even bought all operatives new tools and has continued to develop strong relationships with existing team members. 

ForHousing also gave an update on voids repairs, which is when repairs are made to homes before they are re-let to a new tenant. This is currently going very well and turnaround times are improving.  

We’ve been making great progress with reviewing letters which will inform tenants about upcoming increases to their rent with enough notice time. We also suggested adding QR codes to make it easier to access website links.  

For extra support, any ForHousing Housing Officer will be happy to go through the letter with you once it’s been sent out and answer any questions or concerns you may have.  

ForHousing has listened to our requests for more accessibility, such as making sure letters are in large print (for those who have requested it), and making sure the language is clear and easy to understand.  

You can also receive translated letters if English isn’t your preferred language, so it’s important to update ForHousing with your preferences or accessibility requirements. You can update your preferences through your MyAccount+ account on the ForHousing website or on the app. 

ForHousing shared an update on available funds for local groups and projects. This includes the Community Fund, the Local Improvement Fund, and the Community Group Grant. If you want to find out more about the different funds, you can find all the details here. 

We talked about ways to make the application process more open. One idea was to introduce a Declaration of Interest at more stages of the process. This would help make sure decisions are made in a way that is transparent.  

We even talked about whether we could allow Community Interest Companies (which are set up to benefit the community rather than make a profit) to apply for the Community Group Grant. Everyone was really positive about the suggestion, but we agreed that more discussion is needed before a decision is made.  

At the meeting, we were joined by Amy and Zoe from SPARK, who explained how they support our community with initiatives that improve health and wellbeing. They also invest in young people and families and provide volunteering opportunities. 

With four full-time staff members and 12 volunteers, the group offers a range of holiday activities and food services across Fitton Hill and Oldham. 

SPARK also runs a support group to help people affected by domestic violence, holding regular sessions at the local doctor’s surgery. 

ForHousing also shared details of their Go, See, Do maps that let you see everything that’s available in the community.  

For example, Fitton Hill has many great community spaces like the local library, Food Club, The Brew, and Fitton Hill Bulldogs where residents can connect and find support. 

To discover what’s happening near you, when places are open, and what locals think about them, visit the digital map for Fitton Hill here.  

ForHousing shared some changes to the structure of the Community Voice group. This includes increasing the length of term for the Community Voice chairperson from three years to five years, which will line up with the quarterly meetings better. 

Going forward, there won’t be a limit to the maximum number of members, but there will be a minimum requirement of six members in all Community Voice groups.  

There will also be some changes to the staff who will be regularly attending Community Voice meetings, with Jacqui Holmes (Tenant Involvement Partner at ForHousing) taking over the responsibility of organising the meetings from Bec Lavin. 

We’re always looking for new members to join our Community Voice group. If you are interested in representing your local community and working with ForHousing to make improvements, please get in touch here. 

ForHousing wants to understand what matters most to us and we really appreciate more tenants giving their time and input to groups like these. 

We’ll continue to share future updates with you. Do spread the word about the tenant newsletter with your family and friends, this is published every three months, and you will be able to view the latest version here.