The Sherwood estate offer

As one of the TSA local offer trailblazers Town and Country Housing Group (TCHG) has worked with residents of its Sherwood estate in Tunbridge Wells to set local service standard for cleaning, caretaking and grounds maintenance.

New contractors will be selected with residents and to provide the service to the new standards from summer 2010.

The offer

The standards go into detail for each area of estate services but generally include:

• A list of specific services that are provided through contractors.
• How TCHG will work with partner agencies to improve services.
• How TCHG will keep residents informed - including how they can change the service provided and service costs.
• How tenants can help TCHG.
• Information on making a complaint if the standard is not met.
• Health and Safety considerations.

How tenants have been involved

The Sherwood estate was chosen because it has an established engagement structure, which helped the project move quickly, and because there is regeneration going on alongside the offer trailblazer.

To start the offer process moving, TCHG undertook some research to analyse who lived on the estate and what they expected from their landlord. The research pointed to six social identity groups, which TCHG made plans to consult:

• women
• men
• older people
• younger people
• disabled people
• parents

The consultation process took on many forms including:

• carrying out an ‘on the buses’ consultation on the estate shuttle bus
• asking middle aged white male tenants in the pub
• holding a joinery workshop for younger male tenants
• consulting young men attending a construction skills training project aimed at excluded young people
• consulting tenants on the bus into town
• piggy backing a comic relief event for young mums

TCHG found that tenants wanted, more or less, the same things. This made the process of formulating a single offer much easier, and provided an insight into tenants’ feelings about estate services in general.

Monitoring the offer

Generally, TCHG will monitor this offer through estate inspections and walkabouts. More specific measures are included in the standards document.

Lessons learned

TCHG has the following advice for other housing providers:

• You will need extra resources to undertake local offers consultations properly – TCHG used two days a week of staff time
• Resident involvement staff need to be fully briefed on the contracts they are consulting tenants about
• Landlords should get other stakeholders involved as well as tenants
• Satisfaction needn’t be a key indicator – TCHG aims for an estate that tenants are proud to live in.