National Lockdown - update on our services | Latest News

National Lockdown - update on our services

The Prime Minister announced a new national lockdown from 5th January 2021. This means that tenants and residents should ‘stay at home’ to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus and only leave the house for a limited number of reasons and where it is essential. You can see more information about the restrictions here.

Although in many ways this latest lockdown is similar to the first lockdown in March, there are a few important changes to the guidelines which mean we are able to deliver more services than we were able to offer last year. In line with these new Government guidelines and following stringent COVID-secure working practices, we plan to continue to deliver all our core services to you including emergency and routine repairs, planned improvements to your home, gas, electric and other safety inspections/works, home moves (NB: mutual exchanges are temporarily suspended), welfare benefit and employability advice, investigation and enforcement of anti-social behaviour and sheltered housing support. Our Purple Pantry food outlet will also remain open throughout this lockdown.

We may deliver some of our services differently, such as over the phone rather than face to face visits, to minimise the amount of contact for you and our colleagues. You may also find it easier to contact us or find information on our updated website and our new engagement portal . Colleagues will naturally have to work differently, from different locations and at a reduced capacity, so we ask that you bear with us if things take a little longer than we would normally wish.

Our head office and reception at Harbour House remain closed to the public. If you need to get in touch with us, please contact our Customer Services team.

The health, safety and wellbeing of our tenants and colleagues remains our number one priority, so we have established COVID-secure working practices to keep everyone safe when we carry out work in your homes. We have developed robust guidelines for our staff to follow which you can read here.

We are only able to continue to deliver the services that you need however if we all work together to ensure these services can be delivered safely and we ask that you help us by:

If you have an appointment, notifying us in advance if you or a family member is self-isolating, shielding, has any symptoms of COVID-19 or has been in contact with someone who has displayed symptoms. If any of the above is applicable or you are uncomfortable with anyone carrying out works in your home at the moment, please contact us to re-arrange the appointment.

When our staff are working in your home, they will complete a COVID-19 risk assessment with you at your doorstep. Prior to and during the visit please open your windows to maximise ventilation, stay in another room where possible and leave internal doors open to prevent unnecessary contact with door handles by our staff.

Please be assured that our colleagues are following strict social distancing advice which means people should remain a minimum of at least 2 metres apart. We ask that you support this and avoid approaching them while they continue to work in your homes and in communal areas.  Our colleagues are required to leave your home if they are unable to maintain the required 2 metre social distancing which may mean that your repair is left unfinished or your visit is cut short, leaving a issue unresolved.

We are working with our partners across the city to provide additional support to those who need it. If you feel you are struggling, please contact our Support Hub (details below) and we will put you in touch with people who can help.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to call our team on 0800 953 0213. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we continue to work to deliver services to you through these challenging times.

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