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We are delighted to have helped make Gemma’s dream come true, with a move that will transform her family's life with to a new home at the new development at Applegate Park, Kingsbridge. 

Gemma, 40, has been privately renting across Devon with her family and her two children, for the past seven years. But her persistence to find a new home for her and her family paid dividends when she secured one of the affordable rental homes.

Gemma, who is an English teacher at a local school, said: “We were renting privately, and it was very expensive.

“I was logging on to Devon home choice every week bidding for homes as we desperately needed more space.

“Then these beautiful new homes in Kingsbridge came up and we were really excited. When we found out that we had been accepted for one, the emotion was one of pure joy.

“It was absolutely perfect for us as my son has autism and needs consistency. 

“It is brand new, has three bedrooms, a huge living room and a big garden. It really is amazing.”

“In our previous house I was spending £6 a day for heating and cooking and here we don’t even reach £4 a day. 

“It is nice and warm, and we often have to turn the thermostat down. It just shows how energy efficient it really is.”

James Reseigh, Director of Neighbourhoods at LiveWest, said: “The demand for all homes, particularly affordable housing, has grown. This is down to a few things including lack of supply with fewer completions this year than in previous years demand is rising and outstripping supply for all tenures.  

“These new affordable homes at Kingsbridge are much needed, and we are delighted that Gemma has had the opportunity to rent one changing her family’s life for the better.”

The first residents have started to move into the 94-home scheme in South Devon. 

Congratulations to Gemma and her family on their exciting move. 

Looking for a new home? Check out our Home Finder tool to see how we can help you with your next home. 

8.30am - Ever since the first lock down, going into the sitting room to turn on the computer, has been my first task. This room has a view and I have appreciated it so much. 

I never seem to get to the bottom of the email ‘to do’ list and there are always new tasks to carry out. Today, there are two calls to make before 10 am.

The first call relates to my role sitting on a project steering group, for a Heritage Lottery funded three-year project that involves the beautiful Quantock Hills. I have represented the need to include harder to reach groups and opportunities for residents to be involved in creative projects.

I have arranged for a small estate in Taunton, to have an event with the Landscapes Partnership Quantock Project team. The event will include families, creating crafts with natural materials and enjoying some food provided. 

The second call involves speaking with a Youth Organisation leader, to arrange for some free holiday sessions in Highbridge. I am pleased that through partnership funding, we can help families during the holidays. We always ensure it is LiveWest residents and their wider communities in which they live, that will benefit as a priority.

10am – I attend a meeting online with a group from Minehead. There is a popular request from residents for an event to support designing and painting decorative boards for the Multi Use Games Area, that is looking a little tired. We will combine the event with decorating bird boxes for the estate. 

11.30am – An interesting Solar Panel Energy Company is keen to support community engagement that helps to reduce energy costs and has a small community fund. We discuss my role and explore ideas for the benefit of the community. 

12PM - I place an order for some craft items to go out as activity packs for two estates during half-term. These are estates I am working with to improve community connectivity and where some of the children are displaying some low level anti-social behaviour. 

I am working with other organisations to create a programme of events, to find positive outlets for the children and build upon pride in their community.

12.30pm - I go to the local printers to collect flyers printed for the bird box decorating event. We have budgets to work with, which is especially useful for responsive work in communities. 

1.30pm - I go to ASDA to purchase a gift card of £50, to go towards getting small food items for a luncheon club managed by a senior LiveWest volunteer. Volunteers can be like gold and help so much, especially at times of crisis.

2pm - I set off for one of the first meetings externally for some time. It is with a community association tackling issues of economic difficulty and where a community pantry is to be set up. It is nice to be out in the community and seeing people again.

4pm - I make the most of being in Bridgwater and take some gardening vouchers to a community organisation. A small piece of land belongs to LiveWest, and I was approached by volunteers to turn it into a small garden. The group are moving forward with the restoration. 

4.30pm - I head back home and feel up-lifted by how communities, once given often just a little support, can achieve wonderful things for their neighbourhoods. 

You can find out who your Community Connector is here. 

We have appointed a new Energy Advice Officer to help our customers become more energy efficient and save money on their bills. 

Working within the Tenancy Sustainment team and closely with the Grants Team, energy expert Lucy Betts will head up the area. 

Lucy Betts, our new Energy Advice Officer said: “I will build on the work that LiveWest has been doing to help customers to manage their money. We will focus on maximising income, energy awareness and education on grants and the schemes available to vulnerable households. We will alleviate some of the financial pressure on fuel poor customers, assisting them to gain control of bills and keep their homes warm.

“The main challenge is that the focus of energy advice is changing with the energy market crisis and resulting increase in the price cap and the 2021 Fuel Poverty Strategy (Sustainable Warmth). With challenges on household budgets, we will be prioritising practical solutions which can help to solve the fuel poverty issues of our tenants and build resilience.”

In addition to our own grant funding for customers, we have donated £5,000 to The Housing Associations Charitable Trust (HACT) Energy Hardship Fund which sets out to support those most in need.

Gia Hancock Tenancy Sustainment Manager at LiveWest said: “As a company we believe in a home for everyone and in addition to our own tenancy sustainment activities, are proud to support the Energy Hardship Fund which will help struggling families through the coming winter months and beyond.

“With Lucy’s help we will be able to offer additional support to customers who are struggling with any changes they may encounter through this project. Supporting them to understand how a new heating system works and recognising the benefits and costs they will have.”

We are committed to supporting customers with energy advice, and will be launching a suite of energy advice toolkits and resource packs, holding webinars, podcasts and live practical sessions for customers on a wide range of topics including awareness of financial, and emotional support available. 

We are delighted to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, an annual campaign backed by the government. We appreciate the full value of apprenticeships in helping to set people on their chosen career path.

This year the theme is ‘Build the Future’, encouraging everyone to consider how apprenticeships help to build the skills and knowledge required for a rewarding career.

The week-long celebration, starting on 7 February, will shine a light on the fantastic work being done by employers and apprentices across the country.

We currently have 39 apprentices in programmes ranging from Level 2 in Plumbing to Level 7 in Masters in Business Administration, with a variety of levels and specialisms in between.

Our People Skills Development Adviser, Laura Sanders, said: “National Apprenticeships Week is a great opportunity for us to highlight the amazing progress our apprentices have made during the last year.

“It has been inspirational to hear their stories and their achievements over the course of what has been a difficult last 12 months.

“Apprenticeships can be a life-changing experience for many, providing a foundation to build their careers in the future.

“This week is a chance to focus on how our apprentices, of all ages and backgrounds, across LiveWest are helping to improve the organisation and our customers’ lives.”

Apprentice gas engineer Tracy Perkin, who is in the final year of her apprenticeship, said: “It's amazing that when you start your apprenticeship how daunting the whole prospect is; However, with the support of LiveWest ensuring they are there every step of your journey, it becomes a joy.

“I know it will take a while to get the experience behind me. But I do have an advantage having done the job supervised by my mentor Mark Malone for two years already.

“I'm looking forward to working with LiveWest and being a fully-fledged part of the LiveWest family.

“I've already made a massive difference to my own life and cannot wait until I can make a difference in other people's lives by fixing their boilers and keeping them safe with gas safety checks.”

If you are interested in an apprenticeship or job at LiveWest, you can view our current vacancies using the link below. 

The safety of our customers is an absolute priority for us at LiveWest, and we are committed to ensuring we do everything we can for you. 

As you may already know, we recently launched a new area of our website dedicated to the safety of our customers. Throughout the ‘Your safety’ area you can find information and advice about a range of different areas of safety, including fire, gas and what we do as your housing association to keep you safe. 

As well as everything we do to keep you safe, there is so much you can do as well. Whether it is servicing or checking appliances, helping to keep your communal areas safe or being aware of fire risks whilst cooking, make sure you know how to keep your home safe. An accident is only a mistake away, so it is really important you are aware of the risks around your home. 

We are also supporting customers experiencing anti-social behaviour (ASB). Find out about our new ASB Service Standard. 

One of the major objectives for LiveWest is increasing our capacity to deliver works and services in-house. This will allow us to improve the experience our customers have in areas such as customer service and value for money.

Our plan is to insource key services including repairs, voids and servicing. We started the project in July 2019 with repairs and voids (under the Spectrum Property Care contract delivering works to 1,800 properties). We are now at the next stage of the project to continue to expand the scope and geography of the services self-delivered by LiveWest for customers.

The second service to be insourced is due to be delivered in January 2022. Through the former Knightstone Housing Association Maintenance Partnership, MD Group have been delivering a day-to-day repairs and voids works service since 2014 to 2,700 properties in the Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Gloucestershire areas. As part of this change employees from MD Group will be joining our business on Monday 24 January 2022. To support the insourcing, we are also recruiting Day to Day Repairs Multiskilled Technicians to join our IMS team. This is an exciting time for LiveWest, and we are really looking forward to welcoming our new colleagues into our IMS team and LiveWest.

This is the next step towards providing a single IMS service across LiveWest which, once complete, will ensure that we are providing the same high-level service for customers across all of the areas in which we operate. 

We look forward to updating you with future news about insourcing services to provide the highest level of service we can. 

Sustainable homes, neighbourhoods and communities are at the heart of our commitment to deliver a home for everyone. 
 
As a business, we understand our activities impact the environment, and we have launched our environmental strategy with a genuine belief we have a collective responsibility to protect the environment.  

We have ambitious plans to deliver on this strategy, which will have significant benefits for our customers and communities. Here are some of our plans over the coming years: 

• We are working towards net zero, focusing on increasing the energy efficiency of our homes, reducing our carbon footprint, and improving our customers’ lives. 
• As part of our ambitious plans, we have established a programme to bring 9,000 of our current homes up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C by 2028, two years ahead of the government’s target, investing approximately £40 million to achieve this. 
• In order to make our homes more energy efficient, we are taking a multi-stage approach, reducing energy demand, using low carbon heating and hot water systems and domestic level energy generation.
• In 2022 we are investing over £2m in a Creating Greener Futures Together home improvement Trailblazer. This investment will increase the energy efficiency of over 300 homes and sits alongside our core ambition to support our customers and address fuel poverty.
• It is not just our existing homes where we our improving energy performance as we have established a new homes energy specification. This requires new homes to out-perform Building Regulations using fabric first principles, solar PV and future proofing the heating and hot water systems for later retrofit.
• Our dedicated Renewables Technologies team are fully qualified in all areas of the latest green technology able to install, maintain, service and repair, meaning customers’ needs are dealt with quicker and we are up to date with the latest developments. 

We will continue to update you on our progress with our environmental strategy, and we look forward to celebrating Creating Greener Futures Week again later this year. 

Find out more about sustainability at LiveWest here, as well as our green advice web area for what you can do to learn how to be more environmentally friendly. 

Getting things right for you as a customer is important to us, and as you may already be aware, LiveWest is a member of the Housing Ombudsman, a free and impartial service set up to investigate complaints made by customers about their housing provider. 

The Housing Ombudsman published a new Complaint Handling Code in July 2020, which sets out good practice in complaint handling to ensure landlords respond fairly and quickly, take action to put things right and use feedback to make improvements to the way services are delivered. 

As part of this code, we are required to conduct a self-assessment to review current processes and identify any areas of development needed. We are delighted to announce that InFocus, our customer scrutiny group, have found the way we manage and resolve complaints is in line with the Complaint Handling Code and best practice guidance issued by the Housing Ombudsman and no changes are required to the Complaints and Feedback policy. 

Despite this positive result, we are always looking to improve, and have identified some areas we will be improving: 

• We will ask our Customer Communications Group to review the complaint template letters we send customers informing them of the outcome of complaints to make sure they are clear and jargon-free. This review will be completed by the end of March 2022.
• We will issue a reminder to all LiveWest colleagues to ensure they are clear about the agreed timescales for resolving complaints.  
• We will provide regular updates on the website about complaints including quarterly information on how we’re performing and how we’re using your feedback to improve services. You can find the most recent here. 

Giving us feedback
We try to get things right the first time, and when we do it is great when you let us know what is working well for you. And, if we get things wrong, we want to put complaints right as soon as possible, so we need to hear about these things too.

We welcome feedback from you as this gives us the chance to improve our services for customers. So, whether you have a complaint, compliment or some other feedback you would like to share with us we would like to hear from you. You can provide feedback online. 

Our promises to you:

• We will listen to your complaint and make sure that we understand your concerns.
• We will treat you with respect and courtesy.
• We will try to put things right straight away.
• We will respond to your complaint in a positive, open and timely way.

We aim to resolve complaints as quickly as possible but recognise that there are some occasions where it might take a little longer to resolve the problem. If this is the case, we will let you know. We will also confirm what we have agreed with you in writing.

If you require any further information relating to our customer feedback policy, please contact the Service Improvement team on 0300 123 8080.

Understanding our customers is an important way for us to make sure we are improving our services. 
Throughout spring 2022 we will be carrying out a survey with an external partner, IFF Research. As a LiveWest customer, you may be asked to take part in this survey, which will help us improve services for you. 

This research follows on from our Slice of Life report, carried out during November and December 2020, which gave us an understanding of our customers needs. We have used this research to develop our plans since the research, working on some of the themes customers highlighted previously included dealing with loneliness and initiatives to build digital confidence. 

With how quickly individual circumstances change at the moment, we know how important it is to get an up-to-date understanding of our customers. We would really appreciate you taking the time to complete the voluntary survey. 

The information you give will be kept fully confidential, and questions will include about your local area and community, your experience around finances, understanding your current employment status, your experience and use of digital communication. 

If you would like more information, get in touch with the Research and Insight team on surveys@livewest.co.uk.