Ashburton Triangle Residents Association has a place on the residents forum, which is a regular session for Newlon senior staff to present to residents and take on board feedback. Below are notes from latest meetings
Notes from Meeting 07/02/2024
Resident Engagement Progress Update
The resident involvement team presented their resident engagement strategy. This has been co-designed with residents and has also involved various groups of residents.
The most complex cross departmental buildings (like Ashburton Triangle) are now handled via a residents tracker, which is co-designed with the residents association and owned by the Newlon department with the most issues associated to them.
Recruitment of key positions now have residents sitting on the panel.
Residents' Voice is a new platform that takes short resident pieces and gives them direct access to the board.
Training of resident representatives on legislation and Newlon policies and strategies, including via Bite Size Guides that are open to all residents.
Governance & Strategy
Newlon are planning to make the residents Forum (of which Ashburton Triangle is a part) a formal part of Newlon's governance structure.
More detail will be shared in a meeting in April.
Residents Forum members were surveyed at the end of last year, and responses are currently being reviewed with a view to being improved upon.
Scrutiny
Latest scrutiny panel on complaints is awaiting a mystery shopping exercise.
Next scrutiny panel will be repairs, which will include representation from Ashburton Triangle.
Complaints
Newlon finds that the levels of complaints have remained fairly consistent, and are largely related to repairs and estates
Around 15% of complaints are escalated to stage 2, most relating to repairs.
Around 45% of complaints that have reached the ombudsman over the last year have resulted in findings of mal-administration (5 findings), though there have been more findings in January and it is unclear why this is the case.
The ombudsman has been producing spotlight reports on regular issues which are being provided to Housing Associations.
ASB/ Noise
Team deal with ASB, no-access, and investigations.
For noise complaints there is an app that Newlon will send residents, and there is new equipment that they are starting to use to investigate issues.
Types of legal action that can be taken are: Injunctions, arrest (if injunctions are breached), exclusion orders. possession of property. Injunctions can be done without notice and are usually granted in a couple of days, but due to court delays repossession can take 6-8 months.
Have resolved 13 cases, one through the court. 12 tenants have returned keys prior to court cases. One of those was an AirBnB in ashburton triangle. A leaseholders in Ashburton Triangle is also being taken to court as they have refused to take the property down.
Have undertaken mediation between households recently which is a new process.
Satisfaction is generally up on ASB cases, this is based on post-action surveys.
If there is police action in a building, the police will not usually tell Newlon or concierge. If the concierge is aware of it then they will inform the ASB team about it.
Notes from Meeting 22/02/2023
New Repairs Team
Generally quite impressive, and was clear they understood repairs to date have been pretty awful.
Noted that cyclical works (redecoration) have suffered due to compliance works like fire remediation. There seem to be a LOT of buildings that are waiting for cyclical works.
They are prioritising blocks with healthy sinking funds to avoid charging leaseholds large amounts out of pocket. This should benefit hopefully us.
For blocks with leaseholders they will generally hire a consultant for cyclical works.
Wates
New lead from Wates was equally impressive. Equally honest about prior failings.
They are aiming to improve the services.
One example they gave of improvements is that they have now got the window contractor to pre-order and bring window handles to Ashburton Triangle jobs so that they can make instant fixes if that is the problem.
Board updates
Rent was brought up. It was noted that it's a difficult issue, and the board understand how much of an issue this is for residents.
Question about rent in terms of cyclical works. Newlon takes a proportion of money to go towards planned maintenance, cyclical works and urgent repairs, fire doors. Around 20% of budget goes towards maintenance, and a large amount of money is currently going onto remediation where it can't be claimed from the government. A lot of the rent goes towards new development to provide new homes. The annual accounts give a clear breakdown.
Resident Engagement Strategy
Miles' joining last summer has led to a radical review due to the cost of living challenge and regulatory environment.
There has been a big reorganisation of the resident services team
Some new resident focussed things planned by 2026: including
A resident involved on every recruitment panel for resident facing roles in housing and building services
Significant improved satisfaction scores with top quartile performance.
4 Key objectives of the new strategy:
Co-designing your services with us (involving residents in activities)
You say; we listen, we do (carrying out more consultations)
Your voices amplified (residents on boards and overseeing issues)
It's your resident engagement strategy (the strategy was designed by residents and will be assessed by residents)
Cost of Living Support
It was noted that the hardship fund is still ongoing, giving out around 8.5k a month for things like pre-payment meters, school uniforms or urgent purchases, and residents who are struggling should look at how that can be used. https://www.newlon.org.uk/cost-of-living-support/