News

Throughout the global Coronavirus pandemic, we have been doing what we can to make sure that our tenants are supported to feel safe and secure in their own homes. Many of us have found ourselves spending more time living, working, caring and teaching from home and it has become more important than ever that we feel safe and secure.

We are supporting Tpas (Tenants Participation Advisory Service) Scrutiny Week this week and as always, we are looking for new people to be involved with us.

We’re currently experiencing problems with our telephone system which is causing some delays. Please bear with us whilst we work to resolve the issue. If your call is not an emergency then it may be best to call back later today.  You can still contact us by email at onecall@wdh.co.uk Your patience is appreciated. Thank you  

It was inspiring this week to see our employees recognised, alongside so many other local heroes, as part of 'The Big Thank You' campaign. Local editions of the Wakefield Express praised our employees and those groups and individuals continuing to support the district during the coronavirus pandemic. Our employees have gone over and above to support our communities throughout the crisis in very difficult times, so it is fantastic to see them getting the recognition they so rightly deserve.

Over the next few weeks, we will be reintroducing visits by the Debt Team to provide face to face intensive support to people who need help with their rent account.

As you may already be aware we are pleased to have reintroduced a number of our services over the last few weeks and this is a great step forward for us, marking the return of some normality for you and our employees. I appreciate that many of you will still be nervous about welcoming people into your home but I can assure you we will only do so safely and have introduced additional safety and hygiene measures to keep you and our employees safe. Whilst we may be seeing the opening of pubs and restaurants across the district, we are aware that for many people it will be some time before they feel able to return to every day life. For some this may be down to nervousness around the virus, and for others it may be a result of the impact the pandemic has had on work and finances. For those of you who have been impacted in this way I would like to encourage you to get in touch. We have a range of services available including Employment Advisors who can help if you are currently unemployed, facing unemployment or looking for another job. They can provide great advice and support, whatever your situation. For anyone who is worried about money, we have a number of support services including Cash Wise who can help with budgeting, benefits and accessing financial help or food parcels. Our Debt Team are also available to provide support if you are concerned about paying your rent. If you are worried, please don’t suffer in silence. Contact us and we will discuss which of our services can make life a little easier.  

Housing Association, WDH, has secured funding to build over 5,000 new homes, more than double what was originally planned and deliver its Business Strategy with the help of partners Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Santander and The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC).

For those of you who braved the high street this week, you may have seen that, whilst we didn’t have queues to compete with Primark, our Hubs and Service Access Points (SAPs) were open. As I am sure you can appreciate, this is not a decision we have taken lightly. We put a lot of careful consideration into how we could open safely and ensure that both you, our customers, and our employees are safe.

Firstly, I’d like to thank all of you who took the time to give us your feedback through our recent tenant survey. We are using your feedback to prioritise the remobilisation of our services. As I said in my message last week, we will be starting to reopen our Hubs and Service Access Points across the district shortly, so that those of you who need to speak to us face to face can do so, but in a safe environment. Some of the other things you said were important to you included our grounds maintenance service, which returned last month and is now operating a full service, and our repairs and maintenance service. Whilst we have been focused on carrying out emergency repairs only throughout the lockdown period, we are now looking at how we can reintroduce essential repairs and maintenance services in a way that is safe for both our customers and our employees. We hope to resume essential repairs and maintenance later this month and appreciate the patience and understanding you have shown.

From Sunday 14 June until Friday 19 June 2020 we will be carrying out a major system upgrade.