Estate Management Policy 2025-2028

Wealden is the largest district in East Sussex and covers 323 square miles. The council continues to own and manage its own housing stock. From February 2025 Wealden owned 3,046 rented properties across the 5 main towns in the district and in 30 of the 37 parishes. Just over 60% of this stock is concentrated in the main towns of Hailsham, Crowborough, Heathfield, Polegate and Uckfield. The remainder of the stock is in the small hamlets and villages in rural locations. Most of the housing was built in the immediate post war years and through the 70’s and 80’s.

In addition, the service manages 27 properties on behalf of A2 Dominion across two sites (24 for rent and 3 shared ownership). The Council collects the rent and provides the same management services as it does for its own tenants in return for an administration fee and a set cost per month for repairs works. A2 Dominion remain responsible for any major works or modernisations to the properties. The service also manages 206 leasehold properties sold under the Right to Buy, 55 retirement leasehold properties, 2 Right to Buy shared ownership properties, and 23 general needs shared ownership properties, 11 properties owned in the general fund as well as 401 garages.

Purpose of this Policy

The purpose of this policy is to outline Housing Services approach to working to improve estates in which we own and manage housing.

This policy is concerned with the effective management of the external areas around Wealden District Council’s homes and shared communal areas. This is to ensure that our estates are safe, attractive, and well-maintained places to live.

The policy explains our approach to:

• managing the estate
• how we will involve residents in neighbourhood planning and improvements
• partnership working with other agencies concerned with the safety, security, and appearance of the estate.

Aims and Objectives

Wealden’s Housing Service recognises that there is a clear relationship between the quality of the local environment and residents’ overall quality of life.

We are committed to:

• ensuring the grounds and communal facilities we own and manage are well maintained so they are clean, safe, and secure communities where tenants and residents are proud to live.
• working in partnership with others, including relevant partners (both voluntary and statutory) and Resident Associations for the benefit of residents living in areas where we provide social housing.
• ensuring we have clear standards so that residents know what to expect from our services.
• Ensuring there is clear information on our responsibilities as a landlord and customers respective responsibilities.
• ensuring we monitor all services delivered for us by external contractors.
• ensuring our services and improvement works deliver value for money.
• maintaining a regular, visible presence on our estates
• ensuring we comply with all Health & Safety requirements.
• encouraging residents to take responsibility for their environment/neighbourhood
• taking a clear and firm approach to environmental crime which includes fly-tipping, abandoned cars and dog mess.
• working in partnership with residents and other agencies to develop sustainable communities that are safe, secure, and well maintained.
• ensuring any estate improvement works are planned and the local community involved in shaping these.
• providing an opportunity for our customers to be involved in developing, monitoring, reviewing, and securitising our estates and neighbourhood management services
• placing tenants at the heart of the approach to managing and improving neighbourhoods. This includes working with constituted resident associations, other relevant groups, and individual tenants to deliver this policy and respond to community issues raised to

improve lives, neighbourhoods, and communities by promoting a culture of pride and respect.

• feeding back to tenants regularly through a variety of way including our newsletters, website and involved tenant groups.

Scope of this policy

Our neighbourhoods can be defined as estates, groups of homes with shared external or internal areas, or ad hoc roads or pockets of land that we own.

This policy applies to all the common areas of homes and estates owned or managed by the council and to all the tenancies and leases managed by the council.

We recognise that our neighbourhoods are diverse and so our approach to neighbourhood management reflects the individual requirements of our homes, communal areas, and associated land in a particular area. Therefore, we will listen to residents’ views to get the local picture; and we will work with partners to prioritise work in response to local need.

Defining our Neighbourhoods and Estate Services

Broadly speaking it can be defined as a geographically localised community within a larger town or parish. The Housing Service has therefore generally categorised neighbourhoods by estates.

Our largest estates are:

• Town Farm, Hailsham
• Alderbrook, Crowborough
• Jarvis Brook, Crowborough
• Churchcoombe, Uckfield

It is worth noting that most of our stock is dispersed rather than being based on large estates.  

In delivering estate services this encompasses all the land that we own these include areas of open space, woodlands, communal areas, and paths as well hardstands, properties, and garages.

Communal areas include but is not limited to the shared corridors and stairwells in blocks of flats and shared lounges, kitchens and lavatories/bathrooms and other shared spaces in retirement living courts as well as outside space.

Relevant Legislation, Regulatory Compliance and Related Policies

The introduction of the new Consumer Regulation and Tenant Satisfaction Measures through the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 requires a renewed focus on communal area standards and maintenance.

The key themes in the Neighbourhood & Community Standard state that:

• Social Landlords must work co-operatively with tenants, other landlords and relevant organisations to take all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of shared spaces.
• Social Landlords must co-operate with relevant partners to promote social, environmental, and economic wellbeing in the areas where they provide social housing.
• Social Landlords must work in partnership with appropriate local authority departments, the police, and other relevant organisations to deter and tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods where they provide social housing.

The Key themes in the Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard state that:

• Social Landlords must treat tenants and prospective tenants with fairness and respect.
• Social Landlords must take action to deliver fair and equitable outcomes for tenants and, where relevant, prospective tenant, in relation to the housing and landlord services they provide.
• Social Landlords must take tenants’ views into account in their decision making about how landlord services are delivered and communicate how tenants’ views have been considered.
• Social landlords must communicate with tenants and provide information so tenants can use landlord services, understand what to expect from their landlord, and hold their landlord to account.
• Social landlords must collect and provide information to support effective scrutiny by tenants of their landlord’s performance in delivering landlord services.

We will assess our performance on these Standards through various methods, including through the regulatory annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey (TSM) (also see page 19, Monitoring & Review).

We will continue to ensure that the estates are managed in accordance with best practice and relevant policy and legislation. Therefore, the policy should be read in conjunction with the following:

• Housing Service’s Tenant Involvement Strategy
• Housing Service’s Antisocial Behaviour & Hate Incidents Policy and Procedure
• Housing Service’s Housing Revenue Account Business Plan
• Housing Service’s Asset Management Plan
• Housing Service’s Fencing Policy
• Wealden’s Tenancy Agreements
• Housing Services Health & Safety Policy
• Housing Fire Safety Management Policy
• Wealden District Council’s Housing Strategy
• Tenants and Leaseholders Housing & Support Strategy
• Service Charges Policy
• Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 / Regulator of Social Housing: Regulatory framework for social housing
• Wealden’s Tenant’s (including temporary accommodation tenants), Retirement Living Leaseholds and Right to Buy handbooks.

The Head of Housing, Property Services Manager, Housing Tenancy & Estates Manager and Housing Policy & Partnership Manager are responsible for ensuring that all aspects of their services comply with this policy.

All other employees within the service are required to ensure that they act in accordance with the policy in carrying out their duties.

Staffing and funding are subject to annual review as part of our budget setting and any changes to these resources may impact on our ability to deliver this policy.

Shared responsibilities

Effective neighbourhood management is built on the success of shared responsibilities of both tenants/residents and landlords.

Our responsibilities as landlords include:

• Providing good quality services that keep communal and external areas in a good state of repair, clean, safe, free from hazards and fit for use by residents and visitors.
• Ensuring that there are no Health and Safety risks to residents and visitors in our neighbourhoods.
• Making neighbourhood improvements and where appropriate consulting with residents.
• Giving residents a wide range of opportunities to influence and be involved in how neighbourhood services are delivered and how performance is monitored.
• Listening and where possible acting on concerns raised by residents with regard to their neighbourhood.

Residents’ responsibilities include:

• Making sure that homes, gardens, and driveways are well maintained and in good condition in line with their tenancy/ lease agreement.
• Promptly reporting any repairs or disrepairs for which we are responsible to their own property and communal areas or estates.
• Helping us meet our health and safety responsibility in ensuring that communal areas are kept clean, tidy, safe, and free from obstruction and to not use them to store personal belongings or other items.
• Making sure that they have permission to keep any pets and that pets are kept under control, are not used in a threatening manner and do not defecate/urinate in communal areas.
• Not engaging in anti-social behaviour, nuisance or annoyance to neighbours and reporting any concerns. See our Anti-Social Behaviour & Hate Incidents Policy & Procedure 
• Not to hoard items, animals, or anything at the premises.

Tenancy and Estates Service team

In relation to delivery of this policy Wealden Housing Service employs four Housing Officers, an ASB Officer, a Tenancy Sustainment Officer and three Estate Wardens who work across the whole district as well as a Contracts Monitoring Officer. The four Housing Officers work primarily covers tenancy management and enforcement but also includes estate management. The three Estate Wardens work closely with the Housing Officers, ASB Officer and Tenancy Sustainment Officer, offering a visible presence on estates, helping to promote successful communities and to keep our neighbourhoods clean, tidy, and safe. Both the ASB Officer and Tenancy Sustainment Officers take a practical part in the appearance of our estates ensuring sanctions are used where necessary and providing support to clear communal waste left by residents. The Contracts Monitoring Officer oversees our contracts for grounds maintenance, communal cleaning, communal window cleaning and works to trees on land that we own (not those within individual properties).

Property Services team

In relation to delivery of this policy Wealden’s Housing Service also employs two Contract Officers and Voids Surveyor, Maintenance Inspector, Asset Technician and Senior Climate Change and Assets Surveyor. Between them they are responsible in the context of this policy for the following contracts: responsive repairs contract (external works and communal repairs), gas and electrical contracts, major works, asbestos, lift servicing and repairs and door entry system works.

Fire Safety

The three Estate Wardens are trained and carry out monthly fire safety inspections to all flats which have communal areas. The inspection includes both an internal and external inspection.

In Retirement Living Courts these are done on a weekly basis by the Court Manager.

Our specialist fire consultant undertakes periodic fire risk assessments in line with our Housing Fire Safety Management Policy

Grounds Maintenance

The Tenancy & Estates team is responsible for grounds maintenance and have developed detailed plans of estates to ensure areas within its ownership get maintained, this includes flowerbeds, borders, hedges, ditches, and grass cutting or other areas of planting on our land. Grounds maintenance is provided to 92,359 m². These areas are included in our ground’s maintenance schedule, and this service is delivered on our behalf by a contractor. We employ a Contracts Monitoring Officer who closely monitors these services.

The Housing Service continues to explore ways to engage with residents/resident groups on general needs estates to ensure that works are carried out in accordance with the contract; this includes actual work carried out and quality monitoring. We have a small number of Block Champions who work closely with the Contracts Monitoring Officer to monitor these services at a local level.

We aim to publish on an annual basis a schedule of works for the forthcoming year. This will be shared with the local resident groups where they exist.

Cleaning contracts

In order to ensure that communal areas and communal windows in both general needs and retirement living housing are cleaned to an agreed standard on a regular basis a contractor delivers these services, and they are paid for by residents through a service charge.

These services are monitored by our Contracts Monitoring Officer.

Enforcing conditions of tenancy

One of the roles of the Housing Officer is to ensure that tenants comply with tenancy conditions. In relation to this policy this includes keeping gardens maintained, clean and tidy, as well as ensuring permission is obtained for any pets and that they are kept under control. Where a breach of the tenancy conditions is highlighted appropriate and proportionate action will be taken.

Tackling Antisocial Behaviour 

We currently employ a specialist Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) Officer who works closely with the Housing Officers to lead on cases on ASB. The Housing Service use a range of strategies designed to tackle neighbour nuisance and antisocial behaviour early on, which can stop problems from escalating. The Housing Service work with partner agencies to tackle these issues and is an active member of the Joint Action Group (see page 16, Partnership Working).

We have a published policy on Anti-Social Behaviour and Hate Incidents and associated conditions within all our tenancy agreements and leases. Our policy is tenure neutral enabling us to act on conduct that directly or indirectly relates to or affects our housing management functions. It allows for action to be taken for or against our own secure, non-secure, and introductory tenants, owner-occupiers, and private sector tenants.

Estate Walkabouts

These are regular walkabouts on estates with either a local Resident Group or individual residents (both council tenants and those non-tenants) and the Estate Warden or Housing Officer together with an officer from the Tenant Involvement team and in many instances the Contracts Monitoring Officer for Estate & Tenancy Services.

The frequency will be agreed locally and depending upon local issues and available resources. Representatives from the Police, Highways, and the local ward councillor may also be invited to attend.

As well as estate walkabouts on general needs estates there are potential opportunities for walkabouts in retirement living courts with the court manager or other Council staff member.

Estate Improvements

Wealden will consider improvements to estates on a case-by-case basis and in full consultation with residents; this will be dependent upon budgetary constraints. Ideas for improvements may be driven by our tenants/leaseholders or driven by us.

We will also utilise social value where our contractors deliver services and works for the benefit of our tenants/leaseholders for free as part of their contract terms. Whilst retaining our Community and Environmental Budget to support residents and resident associations to deliver local projects.

The Tenant Involvement team will also work with and support local resident associations/groups to bid for external funding to deliver estate improvements or facilities such as skate parks, play areas, planters etc.

Removing Graffiti

Graffiti might be notified to us by a local resident or identified during an estate walkabout or by an Estate Warden or Housing Officer when in the area. Where the graffiti is on land or buildings owned by the Housing Service it will be removed as soon as possible.

Abandoned Vehicles

Abandoned vehicles are controlled in the district by Operation Crackdown through which Wealden District Council work closely with the police. Officers have direct access to the DVLA system. All reported vehicles are put on the system and visited within 24 hours, with various checks being run via the DVLA system to establish ownership or authorisation to remove. Vehicles are no longer stickered as this encourages possible vandalism and arson. We will work to identify owners of suspected abandoned vehicles and arrange for the vehicle to be removed, stored and disposed of if the owner does not respond after giving the required notice. Where the owner is identified we may re-charge them the costs for the removal, storage, and disposal of the vehicle.

Fly Tipping/rubbish/litter

Where rubbish has been dumped on one Wealden’s housing estates/land the Estate Wardens will usually remove the rubbish and take it to a nearby Waste Recycling site. Where the perpetrator is known to the Housing Service we will endeavour to take action against them.

Where fly tipping occurs on land not in the ownership of housing service, Wealden District Council will visit the site for investigation purposes. This is done within 24 hours but normally within a few hours of being reported to retrieve evidence. Items are then removed by the next day.

The council will only remove items fly tipped on public land. Items fly tipped on private land will be removed but there is a charge for this service, however they will visit the site for evidential purposes. In certain circumstances fly tipped items can be removed from private land with no charge.

The council has a robust investigation procedure and claim back clear up costs, issue formal warnings and also prosecute dependant on the circumstances.

Dog Fouling

Across the district there are dog waste bins provided by either Wealden District Council or the local town/parish council.

All reports of dog fouling are dealt with through the Council’s Street Scene team.

Trees

Wealden recognises that trees on estates may require maintenance on an either an on-going or ad-hoc basis. Wealden will maintain trees on estates of which there are 4898 and carry out inspections.

Where a tree is within the grounds of an individual property the resident will be responsible for maintaining the tree, in-line with their tenancy agreement. There may be exceptions to this where the council will carry out the work and re-charged to the tenant, e.g. where the tree is dangerous or damaging other properties.

Installation of satellite dishes

Before installing a satellite dish, a tenant must get written consent from their Housing Officer. They must also check with the Planning Service to ensure that they are not restricted from installing a satellite dish before doing so. Installation should be in such a place as to minimise the impact on the estate or neighbourhood, for example to the rear elevation of the property. Satellite dish advice is available on the Council’s website.

Location of sheds, greenhouses, and other structures

Where a tenant wishes to erect a shed etc. this will be subject to permission from Housing Officer, and any necessary planning permission.

Prior to granting permission the council will consider various factors including:

• The position of the shed and the impact on the estate or neighbourhood.
• Any potential fire hazard to the property, boundary fence or adjoining property.

Vehicles and Parking

• Many of our homes are located in areas where demand for parking spaces is now greater than the supply. Our approach is to encourage responsible parking so that as many people can benefit from this scarce resource as possible.
• Our tenancy agreements have specific clauses related to parking which tenants must adhere to. This includes the need for all vehicles on our land must be taxed, insured, have a MOT and be roadworthy. There are also restrictions with regards to vehicle size and other vehicles such as caravans, mini-buses, boats, trailers need our written consent before being parked. Additionally, only minor repairs to tenant’s own vehicles are permitted provided that it does not causes nuisance or annoyance to your neighbours. We consider vehicles parked on our land that do not meet these requirements to be causing a nuisance. We will take action to remove them in accordance with our procedures.
• Cars in gardens without a hardstanding are not permitted.
• We do not designate communal parking spaces to individual residents; all our communal spaces are available to all our tenants and their visitors. However, we ask residents to respect disabled parking bays and only use these where the resident has a relevant disabled parking badge.
• We will not normally intervene in parking disputes between residents unless someone is in breach of their tenancy due to the way they are using parking facilities or the way they are behaving towards other residents (e.g. where their actions are serious enough as to cause alarm and distress to others).
• In recent years we have demolished some underused garages to create addition parking on some of our estates. It is worth noting that most of the parking on our estates is owned by Highways which means that we are unable to undertake work on them such as parking lay-bys.
• The service owns just over 400 garages across the district which are available for rent. Demand varies by area with a waiting list being run to match demand with supply.

Signage

• We will ensure that signage on our estates is clear, necessary, appropriate, and well maintained. Health and safety and other mandatory signage will also be present where required.
• We will avoid unnecessary signage and will remove outdated and obsolete signage. We will generally not put up signage such as ‘no ball games’ as this is not enforceable.

Communal/estate repairs

All our staff have a duty in the course of their day-to-day work when they are out and about in our neighbourhoods to note any communal repairs and issues, particularly those which pose a threat to health and safety and report them promptly.

We also encourage our residents to report any issues that they become aware of to us so that appropriate action can be taken. Where issues are reported to us that are not our responsibility, we will provide details of those whose responsibility it is and how they can be contacted.

Lifts

In addition to the lifts we have in individual adapted properties, we have passenger lifts in some of our Retirement Living Courts and use a specialist contractor to maintain and service them. All lifts are serviced regularly and are subject to an annual compliance check.

If a lift breaks down it will not always be possible to bring the lift back into service on the initial callout visit, as parts may be required. In such cases we will inform customers and keep them informed until the lift is back in use.

Door Entry Systems

We recognise the importance of customers feeling safe in their homes and the role well maintained door entry systems can play in this. We therefore have door entry systems on all blocks of flats with a communal entrance and on all our Retirement Living Courts.

These door entry systems are serviced annually in the Retirement Living Courts, and we have a specialist contractor to undertake any repairs to door to the courts or any blocks of flats.

To ensure the safety of our customers, and security of our buildings and neighbourhoods, we will investigate instances where we may have reason to believe that a door has been tampered with or intentionally damaged. Where we identify repeat repairs of a similar nature which suggest interference, we will send out warning letters to customers of the block or investigate the issue as an instance of ASB.

CCTV

Some of our buildings and neighbourhoods may use CCTV cameras as part of the building’s security arrangements. Where this is the case the use and provision of CCTV will be managed in line with Information Commissioners Office guidance.

Planned Works

Every year we carry out stock condition surveys of our properties to validate existing information and gain up to date information on our stock. Using this and our asset management system we develop a detailed 10 year planned maintenance programmes, contract manage the delivery of the works and also to carry out scenario modelling.

As part of this process, we will review any works that are needed to estates over and above ongoing maintenance services such as re-surfacing of paths, re-building of walls etc.

Some works are provided through social value or through the Community & Environmental Budget or external funding accessed by resident groups/associations.  Other works are included as part of tenants weekly rent charge such as staffing cost, repairs, planned works, tenancy enforcement including dealing with ASB.

In addition, some Wealden tenants pay a weekly “service charge” as part of their rental charge. This is to pay for services such as grass cutting of communal areas, communal cleaning or window cleaning or communal lighting. Service charges cover the actual cost of providing these services through a contractor. Service charges are reviewed annually and details for the following financial year’s charges are issued in March each year. See our Service Charge Policy on the housing Strategies and policies page linked in section 2.

Housing Revenue Account budget

We set aside from the Housing Revenue Account an annual Community and Environmental Budget of £15,000 to fund capital projects (it cannot be used to cover of ongoing cost/maintenance (revenue cost)) that our customers want and that  will make improvements to the environment or community facilities on Wealden District Council (WDC) Housing Estates or Retirement Living Courts or shared spaces used by our tenants/leaseholders.

In order to deliver a project at least 50% of those residents affected by it must support the proposal and the maximum that can be awarded is £5,000 per project. Where the project will cost more, we will work with the residents to see what external funding opportunities there are to meet the shortfall.

The sorts of projects that can be funded include:

• Small lighting Improvements
• Community Gardens
• Fencing improvements (but not replacement fencing)
• Benches and seating areas
• Planting and landscaping

External funding

Wealden’s Housing Service’s Tenant Involvement Team work with Resident Associations to help groups identify potential funding and help support them with grant applications for projects. This is because Resident Associations can access both the Community and Environmental Budget and external funding because these constituted bodies are considered charitable and as such can access external funding which the council could not. All these projects will have been identified through surveys and consultation with residents in the neighbourhood/affected would have taken place.

There have been some great grant funding successes in the past including the development of a skate park, gardens plots and play areas. More recently community orchards have been funded.

Working with Tenants

The council has a Tenant Involvement team made up of three part-time officers.

In relation to this policy, the team:

• Provide customers with a wide range of opportunities (as detailed in the Tenant Involvement Options Brochure) to influence, be involved in how services are delivered and monitoring of services. This could be through survey, Block Champions or focus groups.
• Encourage active participation and involvement of customers in decision-making processes.
• Supports scrutiny of our services through Our Consumer Panel and Housing Board and an annual scrutiny project
• Supports the set-up and running of resident associations/groups including through the provision of grants to cover running cost.
• Oversees the Community & Environmental Budget
• Supports community led estate improvements whether through resident association/groups of individual tenant’s ideas and help to secure funding to deliver these.

We are just in the process of launching “Planning for Real” where the Tenant Involvement Team will go out into the Community to discuss with local residents the issues and opportunities locally and develop with them a local improvement plan ranging from short-term to long-term projects and low to high-cost projects. These will be delivered in a number of ways:

• Working with partners – such as Highways, Town, and Parish Councils
• Through existing resident association/groups where they exist or setting new ones where there is appetite
• Through accessing external funding
• Though social value provided by our contractors

Customer Feedback and Complaints

We use customer feedback to help shape the services delivered in our neighbourhoods. This is gained through customer satisfaction and Tenant Satisfaction Measures feedback, general feedback using our dedicated feedback email and customer focus groups to support service reviews/delivery of new services.

We aim to provide a good service to meet the needs of our customers and neighbourhoods. However, we acknowledged that occasionally things go wrong, and customers may wish to complain. All complaints are seen as an opportunity to learn and improve and refine our services.

Working in partnership 

Estate and neighbourhood management is more effective when working in partnership because no single agency can tackle such wide-ranging issues. We are committed to developing effective partnership working to improve and maintain our estates.

As well as working with tenants/resident groups we will work with the others including but not limited to other council services, the local town/parish council, the police, highways, Adult Social Care/Children Services, health services, contractors, community and voluntary organisations/charities to improve the quality of life of residents.

Delivering Partnership Working

We work with key stakeholders and partners for the benefit of our estates to:

• Tackle crime and ensure community safety.
• Improving the physical environment of the community. Examples include development/works to play areas, gardening projects, parking areas.
• Providing value for money
• Enable and support community run activities.

The Housing Service is a very active members of local partnership groups this ensures effective partnership working is implemented. In the context of this policy, this includes:  

East Sussex Housing Management and Standards Group

We are an active member of this group which consists of social landlords operating in East Sussex who:

• network to share learning and good practice, challenges and opportunities promoting consistency across local housing providers.
• Work together and whose workstreams are guided by the voice and experience of people living in our homes.
• Whom have a culture of ongoing improvement against the national consumer standards.
• Support each other to make the best use of resources, including jointly commissioning services to meet shared needs.

Safer Wealden Partnership

Wealden’s Housing Service are an active partner of Joint Action Group (JAG). A multi-agency group who works together with the aim of improving the community and environment in which people live by working jointly to find practical solutions to problems arising in communities.

Social Value

The Social Value Act requires public bodies to consider how the services they are procuring can improve social, economic, and environmental well-being in the communities they serve. As a result, all contractors providing us with services are now expected to provide additional services that positively impacts on our tenants. Projects that we have delivered to date including the provision of solar lights on our land in areas where there are no streetlights, tree planting, clearing HRA land and providing access to area for example through the provision of steps.

The majority of works described in this policy will be funded from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which is made up from tenant’s rents and service charges. More information on the HRA can be found in our Business Plan on the Strategies and Policies webpage linked in section 2.

Communications and Marketing

The Housing Service will ensure that this policy is made available to residents. This will include publishing the document on the website and making hard copies available on request. The policy will be promoted through our tenant and leaseholders bi-annual newsletter “Threshold” and the monthly e-newsletters to raise awareness amongst of the policy’s existence.

Successes arising from this policy will be publicised via Threshold/e-newsletter, our website and in our annual report as well as other means such as social media and the local press. This will include details of successful external funding bids and action taken to improve estates.

Monitoring and Review

Performance in relation to the implementation of the policy will be reported to tenants and leaseholders via the Housing Service’s annual report and Threshold/e-newsletter newsletter. This will include performance in relation to the results of customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups, scrutiny or other engagement activity, monitoring of contracts and the annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey relevant performance measures:

• TP06 Satisfaction that the landlord listens to the tenant views and acts upon them.
• TP07 Satisfaction that the landlord keeps tenants informed about things that matter to them.
• TP09 Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling complaints
• TP10 Satisfaction that the landlord keeps communal areas clean and well maintained.
• TP11 Satisfaction that the landlord makes a positive contribution to neighbourhoods.
• TP12 Satisfaction with the landlord’s approach to handling anti-social behaviour

This information will also be presented to our Housing & Tenants Together Board and Councillors will also be kept up to date via reports to both Overview & Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet.

Wealden will review this policy every 3 years to ensure it remains relevant and effective.