Housing Tenants To Benefit From Antisocial Behaviour Pilot

Published by JenCooke for National Federation of ALMOs in Housing and also in Communities

Tenants and residents across Bolton are set to benefit from an innovative new pilot project that will tackle antisocial behaviour in the region.

Bolton at Home is one of only four organisations nationally to be awarded a grant of £9,000 to set up the Local Standards Pilot which will give tenants a greater say in how antisocial behvaviour is tackled on their estates.

The grant has been awarded by the Tenant Services Authority (TSA), the national regulator for social housing, to develop a series of standards for dealing with antisocial behaviour across Bolton.

The Local Standards Pilot will be developed through the Bolton Community Homes Partnership which includes Bolton Council, Bolton at Home and Bolton housing associations: Irwell Valley, William Sutton, Great Places, Contour Housing St Vincent’s and Places for people. In total the pilot will cover over 27,000 properties.

This pilot project will set standards for areas such as response times and the availability of antisocial behaviour services and will prioritise the issues that matter to tenants.

Led by Bolton at Home, the project will begin immediately and run until April 2010. Bolton at Home was one of 37 schemes nationwide to be selected to receive backing from the TSA from over 185 applications.

The TSA Local Standards pilots will develop a set of national ‘best practice’ standards for social housing tenants, covering every aspect of a tenancy from neighbourhood & estate management to tenant choice and customer service.

The pilot projects will enable tenants to have their say in setting the national standards for social housing and as a result, Bolton at Home’s approach and methodology for antisocial behaviour could be rolled out across the country.

Bolton at Home was awarded the TSA grant in recognition of the partnership with Bolton Community Homes, the borough-wide focus and as a result of its track record in developing innovative projects to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. These include the successful UCAN (Urban Care and Neighbourhood) centres which provide residents with advice, support and access to services and Bolton Council’s volunteer network of community crime fighters.

Bolton at Home also recently joined forces with organisations from across Bolton to launch a network of local ‘hate incident reporting’ centres to provide victims and witnesses of hate crimes with more support in their local community.

Noel Spencer, Chair of Bolton at Home said:

“The decision by the TSA to award this project to Bolton at Home is a major achievement and recognition of the organisation’s innovative work to tackle antisocial behaviour. The Local Standard Pilot will see Bolton at Home working with our partner organisations across the borough to set the standards that will improve the lives of all social housing tenants.”

Peter Marsh, TSA Chief Executive said: "The work we have chosen to support will provide invaluable learning to test, inform and shape our thinking in how local standards can best be agreed with tenants and how they will work in practice.”

If you are a tenant of the one of the landlords developing the pilot and want to be involved, contact Tracey Bailey – Business Development Manager at Bolton at Home on 01204 335541 or email tracey.bailey@boltonathome.org.uk