Alliance News Issue 9
Dealing with damp and mould
How landlords deal with damp and mould in their homes has, quite rightly, been under scrutiny. We began revising and refining our own process for dealing with damp and mould at the start of this year and have been rolling this out over the few past months.
Our dedication to dealing with damp and mould is captured in our nine commitments. The central core of our commitments is that we will encourage customers to call us, so that we can get a trained team member to visit them, they’ll then discuss the situation and create a plan of action.
We’ve worked with industry experts including the Centre for Sustainable Energy to train our team members so that they can deal with both damp and mould as well as fuel poverty. If you’d like to know more about damp and mould please click here.
Cost-of-living help and advice
The cost-of-living crisis will be hitting our communities and customers hard this year. We’ve not only developed our own initiatives to tackle it but we’ve also teamed up with North Somerset Together, an action group of local services, including North Somerset Council, to deliver a co-ordinated response throughout the county.
Through North Somerset Together, we’ve developed and promoted a wide number of initiatives, including Community Living Rooms, which we now have two in our community hubs, and we're in out in the community helping with financial advice sessions.
Amongst our own initiatives, we’ve recently recruited and trained two Home Energy Advisors (HEAs). The HEAs will soon be out in the community helping anyone in North Somerset get the most from their heating, helping them lower their bills and get better living conditions.
Helping foodbanks
We work closely with foodbanks because we recognise the contribution they make and we know the strain they’re under.
Alliance has made financial contributions to two local foodbanks in Weston and Clevedon for the past few years. This year we’ve substantially increased our contribution to these organisations to £8,500 so they can help more people. If you’d like to find out more, please click here.
New Board Members
Alliance’s Board recently welcomed two new members, Cllr Ciaran Cronnelly and Amanda Hamilton-Stanley. Ciaran is the councillor for Weston-super-Mare, Winterstoke and currently works as the Head of Funded Services for Citizen’s Advice.
Amanda is a professional trustee and business lawyer. She has almost 30 years of experience in both commercial and not for profit/charitable organisations in a variety of sectors including property development.
If you’d like to find out more about either of them, please click here.
What's developing?
The first residents are now moving into Marina Gardens in Portishead. To ensure the process is smooth, they’re moving in in waves. Shared Owners and those with the most urgent housing need are moving in first and we’re filling around 12 homes per week.
Our 50 home site at Millcross in Clevedon has gone to tender for architects this week and we’re looking forward to developing this 100% affordable scheme which is Alliance-led.
Keeping in touch
We’re always happy to talk about any issue you would like to raise. If you need to raise an issue on behalf of one of your constituents, you can get in touch by emailing councillor@alliancehomes.org.uk