A message from our CEO

I am really pleased to share with you the highlights from across West Kent for the four months since our last newsletter.

Covid response

Over the last six months, at West Kent we have reimagined how we can deliver our services. We have fast- tracked some of our existing plans to support our Covid response, in particular improving our customer experience and increasing resident involvement. You can see some great examples of this below.

Our teams have worked hard with our partners to clear the backlog in routine repairs and re-let empty properties handed over during lockdown. We set ourselves a challenging ambition to catch up by September and I am hugely grateful that the changes we made in how we work has meant our 3,300 backlog repairs were largely cleared by the end of August and 98% of our voids re-let by the same time. In March we took steps to prioritise keeping our residents safe, ensuring we completed gas servicing and all emergency repairs. Credit must go to our iNHomes team who re-organised themselves immediately and kept working every day through these challenges. They only closed on ‘day one’ to rethink how best to keep our staff and residents safe while delivering essential services.

Places to Live, Space to Grow

We are proud to support the National Housing Federation campaign ‘Homes at the Heart’ by sharing examples of our work strengthening communities and building affordable homes as we deliver on our vision to create ‘Places to Live, Space to Grow’. As members of the Kent Housing Group and the Kent Developers’ Group we are keen to play our part in re-starting the economy in Kent, working with local policy makers and Government to shape strategy.

I am excited to share news about our new executive team appointments, Neil is joining us in October and Kate in December. The West Kent achievements so far in 2020, together with our new funding and the ability to work in joint ventures mean we are now well placed to deliver our ambitious strategic plan.

Tracy Allison, CEO

Funding secured for future growth

NatWest supports West Kent with £60m new funding to support the development of new homes, as part of their recent £3bn commitment to the sector.

Announcing new executive appointments

Neil Diddams will be joining West Kent as our Property and Asset Management Director on 19 October and Kate Flaherty will be joining West Kent as our Property Development and Partnerships Director on 1 December.

New approach to rent arrears

We've changed the way we contact residents who are in arrears to ensure a clear message is sent to them - that help and support is available if times are tough.

West Kent goes east

We're building more homes than ever in the east of Kent as part of our commitment to build 1,500 new homes across Kent by 2025.

New 'net zero' homes

We're about to submit a planning application for its first near net or full ‘net zero’ housing development.

Working in partnership to get residents the skills they need

Our training and employment team make it their job to get our residents a job; now more than ever.

We’re taking a stand against domestic abuse

We've been working with our residents to achieve our Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance accreditation.

The accreditation is the UK benchmark for how housing providers should respond to domestic abuse in the UK.

Equality, diversity and inclusion update

We are now members of the Housing Diversity Network (HDN). HDN is a social enterprise that supports organisations to improve how they address inequality, get the most from their staff and meet the needs of the communities they work with.

HDN carried out a health check for us in September 2020 to help us understand where we could improve our approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Homes at the Heart

Our homes have never been more important to us than they have been during the coronavirus crisis. For some people, home has been a sanctuary. For others, it has been a prison. Everyone deserves a safe, secure, comfortable place to call home. Not just now, in the middle of this crisis, but always.

A new name for the 8-12s club

We are changing the name of our 8-12s project in response to feedback from parents, young people and partner organisations.

The new name of our youth services offer to those aged 8 to 12 is now ‘Young Adventurers’.

Tenants take to TikTok

Residents at our over 55s scheme Montgomery Court, Rochester, have taken to TikTok during lockdown.

Covid-friendly MacMillan Coffee Morning

Residents at our over 55s scheme, Bowles Lodge in Hawkhurst have always supported the Macmillan Cancer Support Coffee Morning. But, with new restrictions on social gatherings, staff had to think of a new way to run the morning.

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