You will continue to

contact us in the same way

C-mail Keeping in touch with residents

In the spring we got in touch to let you know that our proposed merger with Greenfields Community Housing is to go ahead. On July 1 we will become Eastlight Community Homes.

In this newsletter we explain a bit more about what this means for you. This is an exciting journey that will result in us being able to do more for you and our community, but this won’t happen overnight. We will slowly start to join together our services, ensuring our current standards are not disrupted and then invest in improvements – so we are stronger together.

There will be plenty of opportunities to have your say and influence decision-making along the way. Residents are at the core of Eastlight’s Community Gateway and will play a key role in shaping our future. Thank you for 47 years of Colne, here’s to our next chapter as Eastlight Community Homes! We will continue to stay in touch.

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Colne Housing will proudly become Eastlight Community Homes on July 1

Why Eastlight?The Eastlight Community Homes name and logo was shaped by residents, staff and partner organisations. This new identity reflects our commitment to you, your home and communities and shines a light on our ambition to do more in future for the East of England. It will be rolled out over the coming months so you will see more of it. Thanks to all of you who helped the creative process!

You will not see any immediate change, other than the new

name and logo

You will pay your rent and/

or service charge in the

same way

Services will continue to be

delivered as they are now

We will have the same staff and

teams

Preparing you for your new

landlord

Final edition

You can apply to become a shareholder via our website or register your interest in getting involved by emailing emily.norman@colnehousing.co.uk

2 C-mail keeping in touch with residents Summer 2020 C-mail keeping in touch with residents Summer 2020 3Contact Centre Number 01206 244700

www.colnehousing.co.uk www.colnehousing.co.uk

Stronger together: What Eastlight will do for you

Joining forces will allow Colne and Greenfields to achieve far more than we could do separately.

Below are just some of the benefits Eastlight Community Homes will bring to you and our community over the next five years.

Your questions answeredHow do I contact Eastlight Community Homes?

Please contact us as usual on 01206 244700 or by emailing info@colnehousing.co.uk. The only change is that you will be greeted by a Contact Centre Advisor introducing themselves as working for Eastlight Community Homes!Working hours will remain the same,

and our out of hours service for emergencies will continue.

Will my rights change?No. Your rights as a tenant or leaseholder will not change. That includes your rights under your tenancy or lease and your statutory rights.

Will my tenancy/lease change on July 1?No, you will automatically become a tenant or leaseholder of Eastlight Community Homes. All of your terms and conditions, including rent and charges, will remain unchanged.

Will there be an official notification of the change in landlord?Yes. Soon after July 1 all tenants and leaseholders will receive a legal document in the post called a Section 48 which formally confirms that your landlord has changed from Colne to Eastlight Community Homes. Please look out for it!

I’d like to report a repair from July 1. What should I do?You can still report repairs by visiting www.colnehousing.co.uk/ customer-services/report-it or by calling 01206 244700 and pressing the report a repair option. Fosters will continue to be our main contractor whilst we shape the service later in the year.For updates on our services during the pandemic, please visit www.colnehousing.co.uk/covid-19

Do I need to pay rent in a different way?No. Please use the same methods, account numbers, sort codes and payment references that you use now.

I am due to have an improvement to my home. Will this still go ahead?

Will health and safety checks continue?Absolutely. Eastlight Community Homes’ top priority is to keep you and your home safe. This is a legal requirement and we pride ourselves in delivering good practice. You must continue to raise any concerns you have with us.

Will the Colne websites still work?Yes. The information on the Colne website and Colne handbook will be kept up-to-date. There will be a new website www.eastlighthomes.co.uk which will contain information about Eastlight and links to Colne’s and Greenfields’ websites.

What is a Community Gateway?Eastlight will be a Community Gateway Association, like Greenfields is currently. That means all residents of the new organisation would be invited to have a share and vote at Annual General Meetings. You could decide how much you get involved.

How do I get involved?

Q Q

Q

Q

Q

Q

Q

48

Q

Q

Q

Q

Yes, all planned improvements will take place.

There will be plenty of exciting and meaningful opportunities to influence decisions about your services and what improvements should be made in your communities.

Home improvements: We will invest in your homes, to help you remain safe, comfortable and independent.We will improve the repairs service.

Modern services: We will develop further the services we offer to you, to ensure you receive the support you need, how and when you need it.

Shape our future: We will work with you to create a Resident Academy, providing the skills and learning required to get involved in our communities.

More affordable homes: Eastlight will build up to 1,300 more homes over five years, in addition to the 2,500 that Greenfields and Colne were planning to build for you, your family and our communities.

Community Investment: We will invest an extra £500,000 in our communities. Community groups will play a leading role in identifying where these funds will make the most difference.

Career opportunities: Our growing housing association will create exciting jobs for members of our communities, including apprenticeships and more opportunities for tradespeople.

Cone’s Chief Executive Sara Thakkar (left) and Emma Palmer, Chief Executive of Greenfields, will lead Eastlight Community Homes

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3,367homes

provided by Colne

200 for older people

126 homes built

for rent

183 for people

with learning disabilities 113

improvements to adapt homes to residents’ needs

homes

invested in existing homes

£1.9 m

across

9local

authority areas

41homes built for shared ownership

3 for temporarily

homeless people

Learning from complaints

Involving you

What did we achieve in the last year?

Reporting back to our residents 2019-2020

Colne Housing is a vibrant, growing housing association specialising in enabling independent living. We want to meet housing need in the East of England. To do that we have agreed to merge with Greenfields Community Housing and become Eastlight Community Homes. This will enable us to continue to provide a range of affordable homes of all types of tenancy for our current and future customers in Essex, Suffolk and beyond.

The volume of complaints received remains small (2%) compared to the number of customers and range of services provided. Our Board regularly checks how we handle complaints. There were 63 complaints about repairs and maintenance out of 7,284 repairs reported. Our repairs contractors responded with an improvement plan.We welcome resident feedback to help us shape new ways of doing things. We also receive many compliments!

The top 10 reasons for complaint:1. Missed appointments

2. Failure to fix a repair first time

3. Delays in carrying out repairs

4. Out of Hours service response – particularly for heating and plumbing breakdowns

5. Quality of repair by responsive contractor

6. Lack of maintenance

7. Poor communication – failure to keep the resident informed of complaint progress and not following through to resolution

8. Vexatious complaints from customers

9. Poor customer experience

10. Lack of understanding from staff about effective complaint management

We modernised and widened our resident engagement with video dialogues, online surveys, Zoom workshops and social media polls. We worked with residents to scrutinise our merger, shape our name and logo and support the National Housing Federation’s Together with Tenants which helps you hold us to account. It is due to be rolled out later this year. Watch out for more opportunities.

Welfare Support£596,000 IT’S A RECORD!This is the amount of benefits we helped residents claim.Our Welfare Advice Officer supports those who are entitled to receive benefits but need help to apply. We are very proud of all of our teams who work together to make such a difference.

www.colnehousing.co.uk www.colnehousing.co.uk

Repairs

Cust

omer s

atisfaction with

responsive repairs

Keeping you safe

100%homes with

valid gas safe certificate

100%homes with

valid fire safe certificate

653improvements to

keep you and your homes fire safe 40

legal enforcement actions and orders

82% of victims of

anti-social behaviour felt

supported through their case

fire safety posters were put up in blocks

for residents to see what safety measures

have been put in place, with more to come

100

Complaints received

111 74UP

100calls were made to our Health and Safety and Covid hotline. All were

non urgent calls and we were able to support

people effectively.

fire risk assessments completed

150Around

3,000calls to our Contact

Centre a month (average)

1,500emails dealt with by our Contact Centre a

month (average)

89%

CASE STUDYSome of our residents in Wivenhoe had been struggling with frequent disturbances from a neighbour but were too afraid to report it in fear that it would affect their tenancy.After many discussions, the residents agreed to work with Colne and Essex Police to log the incidents. The nuisance tenant and two others were arrested due to drug-related activity and the property has now been secured.

OFFICERS VISIT THESE PREMISES 24/7

ANY SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOUR WILL BE REPORTED

Report any suspicious behaviour to: Essex Police via 101 or do it anonymously with CrimeStoppers at crimestoppers-uk.org or call 0800 555111. Alternatively, you can speak to Colne Housing’s Contact Centre Team on 01206 244700.

One of the residents said: “The disturbances got so bad that I had been looking to move. I can now continue to decorate and finally make my place feel like home”. Without the engagement of the local residents, the behaviours would have continued, and we would not have been able to offer our support.

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www.colnehousing.co.uk www.colnehousing.co.uk

Working together to make a differenceAnti-social behaviour can have an impact on your quality of life, particularly with more of us staying at home. We understand that reporting it can be daunting, but we always encourage you to let us know so that we can put a stop to it. Take a look at our “report it” tool kit on our website to find out more about how we can help.

We go the extra mile to combat lockdown loneliness Members of staff from across Colne helped with calls to all residents aged over 70 and to those who are more vulnerable.The aim was to give some respite to the isolation that many were experiencing.For some, the calls were an opportunity for a friendly chat and for others we were able to support with individual needs such as food and prescription deliveries. One of our colleagues Mell Robinson said: “I am really enjoying speaking with our residents. They are telling me such positive things on the whole – such as their family is doing their shopping and they are baking in return. I feel that it’s so important to hear a human voice during this lockdown and I know how much they appreciate receiving a call”.

We have had some great feedback from residents and the community. One resident said: “It makes my day. There’s so much doom and gloom in the world at the moment, it’s lovely to have someone who makes me smile”. Essex County Council has also praised our response. Public Health Registrar Anna Starling thanked Colne for our initiative during this uncertain time and taking pressure off public services.

Providing urgent help to our community During the coronavirus pandemic more and more local people have needed urgent help.We have given much-needed funds to a range of groups struggling to cope.

From our grant-making fund Colne Community Builders we awarded:

£6,000Colchester and Tendring Youth Enquiry Service (YES) To support the Go Green allotment in Colchester, providing volunteering opportunities to break social isolation, learn new skills and improve mental health. Fresh fruit and vegetables are grown for the Night Shelter.

£5,000Firstsite and Community 360, ColchesterTo provide a space for a food distribution hub during the pandemic. Over 110 food parcels a week (with demand rising), are being packed daily.

Hope 2020

They said there was a virus, we had to stay indoors, Away from all our loved ones 2 metres was the clause.

No longer had we freedom, to do just as we pleased, Our country was in lockdown And safety now was key.

We clapped for our key workers Shared rainbows as a sign, of reuniting with our loved ones Looking forward to this time.

Days, weeks and months flew past, Great losses along the way Our country we grew stronger Reuniting by the day.

Now we seek a brighter future A little wiser than before Of our lockdown 2020 And our hopes and dreams in store.

By Shirley Beach

As well as supporting our vulnerable residents, Tenancy Sustainment Officer Shirley Beach has turned to poetry to help us through the pandemic. She wanted to share her poem with you.

For updates on our services during the pandemic, please visit www.colnehousing.co.uk/covid-19

www.colnehousing.co.uk/customer-services/ anti-social-behaviour

£4,500 Outhouse East, ColchesterTo pay for a counsellor for the young people who have been contacting them for additional support.

£2,500 Uttlesford Citizens Advice Bureau For their home visiting service which helps people who cannot travel to apply for the benefits they need.

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Thanks for the Colne Memories 1973 – 2020

Elizabeth Knowlson, Resident: “As soon as I moved in it was like a huge weight had been lifted from me. I said to the Tenancy Sustainment Officer Amanda Clare when she showed me my flat that they will have to carry me out feet first!”

Liz Mullender, Contact Centre Advisor: “What sticks in my head is the time we had fun dressing up to raise money for charities and some of us even dressed up for opening ceremonies.”

Debi McAndrew, Tenancy Sustainment Officer: “One day a resident told me how his earliest memory was sitting on the back doorstep of his home watching a Zeppelin caught in search lights as it flew back over the sea to Germany. It’s not often you get to hear first-hand accounts like that of things that happened almost a hundred years before.”

Tim Golden, Resident: “I have been a Colne resident since 1983. I remember visiting the Colne office on Sir Isaac’s Walk in Colchester. At the time there were barely any staff and rent was only £14.50 a week!”

Thank you to those of you who sent in your memories. There’s still time to share, send in your Colne stand-out moments to emily.norman@colnehousing.co.uk and check our social media pages!

Sir Isaac’s Walk office

Wear Green for Grenfell

Opening our office at Digby House, Colchester

Colne’s 35th Birthday. Former CEO Mark Powell

Davies pictured far left

Resident Bunny Honeybun’s 104th birthday celebration, with

Colne Chief Executive Sara Thakkar

Colne’s 1,500th property – West Mersea

Opening of Rochford Road 1995

Colne’s 40th Birthday

Opening of Oakapple Close, Colchester

Mark Powell Davies, former CEO: “I retired in 2015 and it strikes me that there are a few enduring themes about Colne. Back in 1995 we were thinking about the roofs that Colne would be replacing in 2020 and building this into our financial plans. One of the first conferences we arranged was called ‘2020 Vision’, trying to envisage what Colne and the world might look like 25 or so years hence. I can’t remember if we came to the right conclusions!“