Around your home
Keeps communal areas clean/maintained
46%
Makes a positive contribution to your neighbourhood
38%
Approach to handling antisocial behaviour
30%
Communal space
External
We’re carrying out a biodiversity trial in Bedfordshire to help us understand how we can manage our open spaces. Following on from an environmental survey, a wildflower meadow was planted in an area on an estate in Ampthill. Wildflower meadows have various advantages:
- they attract bees and butterflies, which pollinate food crops
- they support other wildlife such as birds and small mammals
- their soil structure reduces the risk of flooding.
Where we’re planning new homes, we’ll add wildflower areas where we can.
Internal
We strive to maintain clean, tidy and usable communal areas. Cleaning schedules vary, depending on the contract and service charge costs. Value for money is important in choosing a cleaning contractor. We expect quality services for a competitive price.
Creating stronger, healthier communities
We understand the importance of creating places where you can be healthy and happy. That’s why we have a Health and Housing
Co-ordinator and Wellbeing Co-ordinator.
Our Health & Housing Co-ordinator runs tea and talk sessions in Bedfordshire – at our community hub in Clifton and at a community space in Biggleswade. They have delivered a number of health-check roadshows for customers across our regions. Over 130 customers attended the roadshows, which included blood pressure and BMI checks, as well as conversations around healthy living.
Our Wellbeing Co-ordinator has run dance and exercise classes at six retirement schemes across central Bedfordshire. They also run two therapeutic gardening schemes which are attended by customers who are socially prescribed gardening to relieve anxiety, depression or low mood.
Success stories
Our new health and housing partnership
In April 2022, we started an innovative partnership with fellow housing association Peabody and public health teams from Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes City councils.
This is to create a new way of working between health and housing that will help tackle health inequalities and improve engagement with public health services.
Some of the key areas focused on in the first year have been:
• Stopping smoking
• Weight loss
• Mental health
• Hoarding
• Drug and alcohol use
We’re pleased to continue to make a difference in our communities, despite the challenging operating environment we face.
Supporting young people
We also support children and young people in Bedfordshire. Our Youth Participation Co-ordinator runs social, leisure and fitness activities during school holidays. We work with youth coaches, support workers and volunteers to provide mentoring support.
We also work with local authorities and the police on projects to help tackle antisocial behaviour and alcohol issues.
Focus on
Antisocial behaviour
We aim to provide a clean safe and secure environment for you to live in. We work in partnership with customers,
communities and local authorities to try to achieve this.
We take all reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) seriously and will work with you to address any problems.
To help you work out what is and isn’t ASB, we have a toolkit on our website
www.guhg.co.uk/help-advice/anti-social-behaviour/
We work with local authorities and the police to resolve serious ASB issues.
Have a look at some other facts and figures from the year:
