News from Progress Housing Group
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StreetTalkIssue 17 – Spring News from Progress Housing Group Investing in your home pages 5-8 Progress Champions page 3 Building new homes pages 10-11 Independent Times pages 13-17 News in brief Welcome to your Head Office: Sumner House, tenants´ newsletter Top 5 tips 21 King Street, Leyland, Lancashire, PR25 2LW StreetTalk Open Monday to Friday for saving 9am-5pm Warwick House, Kilnhouse Lane, Now that spring is here, it is time energy Lytham St Annes, FY8 3DU to start planning and planting for Monday to Thursday Here are five simple tips on 9.30am-12.30pm our annual gardening competition. Friday - closed how you can save money Progress Connect Find out how you can enter on page 20. by being energy efficient in 03333 204555 your home: Monday to Friday 8am-6pm This issue also gives you important information about our maintenance and improvements programme for the year ahead 1) Turning your thermostat Repairs 03333 204555 down by 1˚C could cut your [email protected] (see pages 5-8). www.progressgroup.org.uk heating bills by up to 10 per cent and save you around Website Find out what residents living in our independent living schemes www.progressgroup.org.uk have been up to over the past few months in the Independent £85 a year. Email Times section on pages 13-17. 2) Replacing just one old light Progress Champions [email protected] bulb with an energy saving @ProgressHG As always, we are delighted to receive your contributions to or LED equivalent can cut StreetTalk, whether they are photos, recipes or money saving tips www.facebook.com/ lighting costs by up to £35 a Our Progress Champions are tenants who volunteer that you would like us to share, please send them to us. You will ProgressStreetTalk year. Turning off your lights their time to help others by providing advice and find our contact details on the left of this page. when they are not in use can save you up to £13 a year on support on how to make a rent payment, report a If you would like this newsletter in Be rnie K e e n a n your energy bills. repair, how to use a computer and access the internet another format, please contact us. Executive Director (Services and Growth) 3) Make sure you switch your and how to save energy. (Urdu) appliances off at the plug as UK households spend an They will happily work with groups of The Progress Champions have (Cantonese) average of £30 a year leaving people or individuals on a one to one created their own personalised appliances on standby. basis. leaflets to promote this service (Mandarin) Features. which will soon be available on our 4) According to the Energy Recently our Progress Champions Facebook page and website. (Polish) Saving Trust, draught attended a training session with the proofing windows and doors Royal National Institute for the Blind in your home could save you on how to support customers who between £25-£50 per year. are partially sighted or have sight loss to use the internet. Contributors 5) Only boil the water you need Following training with Lancashire • Debbie Atherton • Laura Marshall when making drinks. Adult Learning on ‘how to be a • Sarah Barnes • June McNamee These figures are sourced from digital volunteer’ our Progress • Sam Beattie • Diane Nash Renovations and Scrutiny Pool shortlisted the Energy Saving Trust. • Nykkie Burrell • Ursula Patten refurbishments 14 for Tpas award 19 Champions have hosted a training • Lucy Cheetham • Gill Shaw day at South Hey independent living • Andrew Coward • Richard Tong scheme in Lytham St Annes to try • Margaret Lonsdale • Sue Whitham and dispel some of the fears about getting online. How to contribute They also organised a digital ‘bacon buttie’ session on Tuesday 28 March If you would like to contribute to at South Hey to support customers StreetTalk or would like to receive the newsletter on CD then please contact to access the internet and help them Joanne Hodson, StreetTalk Editor, use their tablets/laptops etc. on 03333 204555 or email NCS challenge 2017 23 Striving to be the best 24 [email protected] Follow us on Twitter @ProgressHG 2 3 Visit us online at www.progressgroup.org.uk News in brief in Congratulations Investing Michael Contact us The quarterly surveys’ prize We recently launched a brand new customer service draw winner of the £50 Love2shop voucher is Michael your hub on the website which will make it even easier of Penwortham who completed to find the answer to any queries that you may have a gas servicing survey for us. regarding your tenancy, property or community. Please don’t forget to complete your customer satisfaction You can visit the hub online at To visit the hub, just click home questionnaires. It is a great way any time of the day or night and on the ‘Contact us’ link on any of helping us to improve our quickly get an answer without the page of the website at services and you could be the inconvenience of having to pick www.progressgroup.org.uk. next lucky winner of £50. up the phone or wait for opening It’s always worth paying us a hours. visit online as we are continually The new customer service hub updating the site with useful starts with your enquiry and leads information, news and new April marks the start of our 2017/18 maintenance and you to the correct information features. You can chat to us live as quickly as possible. It’s far online during opening hours – in improvements programme. Over the next year, we easier than trawling through the fact, 1,500 of you have got in Thank entire website and you will find touch in this way this year alone! plan to spend more than £18.2 million on your homes. answers to the questions you You can also contact us and keep most frequently ask us about such up-to-date via our Facebook and as your rent, repairs, your home, This is how the money will be spent: Twitter accounts – visit us at @ you moving on, and reporting issues. ProgressHG and https://www. We have collected examples of the facebook.com/ProgressStreetTalk/ A huge thank you to everyone Planned maintenance and improvements most common queries you contact who participated in our Bathrooms, kitchens, electrical rewiring, us about through email, telephone telephone Survey of Tenants heating systems, etc. £4.57 million calls and live web chat and will And Residents (STAR). All continue to develop these over the the data is currently being Cyclical maintenance coming months, so please let us processed and in the next Gas servicing, painting, energy efficiency £3.25 million know if we have missed anything. edition of StreetTalk we will be works, etc. including an article highlighting independent living schemes listed in the key findings. Responsive repairs these areas; just those that we have identified as needing work. Day-to-day repairs, clearing and cleaning £7.13 million empty properties, etc. We will notify you in advance if we are carrying out work to your home. If your property is not listed, it doesn’t Miscellaneous PHG re-awarded £3.29 million necessarily mean that we will not Aids and adaptations, environmental carry out work at your home this year. improvement works, etc. Unless stated otherwise, we will IIP accreditation TOTAL £18.2 million notify you by letter at least four weeks before starting any work that may ‘Investors in People’ is September 2015 saw the launch of indicators based on the features affect you. We will explain the works How is the work planned? How will I find out if any the standard for people the Sixth Generation Standard. Led of organisations that consistently proposed and the level of disruption by a UK government commission outperform industry norms. work is being carried out you can expect. management. The To help us plan our future review, hundreds of academics, Progress Housing Group is proud maintenance programmes, we to my home? For planning purposes, we may need standard defines what business leaders, industry experts to have been accredited against the record the condition of each element In this article, you will find details to inspect your home to assess the it takes to lead, support and practitioners were involved in Investors in People standard since of every property in a database. of the repairs, maintenance and work that needs to be completed. If and manage people for the creation of the ‘sixth generation’, 1996 and in February 2017 was, We continually update our records improvement works that we will be we need to inspect your property we which introduces a four stage once again, reaccredited for a further using information collected from our carrying out between April 2017 will notify you in writing. However, if sustainable results. performance model, and nine new three years. ongoing programme of property and March 2018. Work will not be time does not permit, an inspector inspections. completed at all properties and may notify you in person. Pay your rent online at www.progressgroup.org.uk 4 5 Report repairs online at www.progressgroup.org.uk Independent living homes. Demand for these works is scheme refurbishments high, so we carefully assess every Planned maintenance request. This year we will be carrying out and improvements major refurbishment work at: We have a specialist assessment Stanner Lodge and St John’s Court officer who can give you advice on independent living schemes. how to make the best use of your Every year we carry out a programme of planned home.