Going dotty helps Mendip Housing plan for the year

Published by pdavey for Flourish Homes in Housing

Mendip Housing residents went all dotty to help the Somerset housing association make a plan of action for 2008/9.

Each year, the local housing association, which owns and manages 4,000 properties in Shepton Mallet, Glastonbury, Street, Wells, Frome and 51 surrounding villages, gathers residents to have their say on the work it carries out in the forthcoming year.

During a special away day held at the Council Chamber in Shepton Mallet last week, residents used brightly coloured sticky dots to vote for the issues they think Mendip Housing, which is a member of the Aster Group, should be concentrating on during 2008/9.

This year, residents said their top three priorities for staff are:

1. To organise more social events as a way of encouraging more tenants to get involved in the work of the housing association
2. To organise more events during school holidays to help combat anti-social behaviour on estates
3. To work on improving awareness about disability and diversity issues not just among staff but also other residents

“This is one of our biggest events where we gather our residents together to hear what they have to say about what we’ve done over the past year and what we should be concentrating on for the next year,” explained Community Involvement Manager Beverley Breeds.

“What they tell us directly influences what we do. We gather these votes and write up an action plan for the year which is based on the issues that have received the most votes on the day.

“At the end of this event, our residents also told us that they wanted to organise, plan and run next year’s event. This is really great news for us because it shows that they are growing in confidence and are actively seeking a bigger role in the way we do our work which is what we want.”

As a result of the vote Mendip Housing will look to plan more events for school holidays as a way of keeping young people occupied, which can help to combat complaints of anti-social behaviour. The housing association is already working on a ‘hotspot’ project identifying residential areas which have a combination of problems, such as high rent arrears, properties that are hard to let and anti-social behaviour complaints. It can then concentrate resources in these areas to help combat the problems.