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Alliance News Issue 4

Welcome to another edition of our stakeholder newsletter, Alliance News

Alliance News provides you with an update on what’s happening at Alliance Homes and how we’re helping customers in your neighbourhood.

Back to the future?

We’re very pleased to say our services are now fully re-opened, in line with the Government’s roadmap for easing restrictions. Our customers can now book the full range of repairs and our operatives will deliver a Covid-safe service.

We’ve also re-opened our main office in Portishead, so customers who need a face-to-face meeting can now book an appointment. To keep our customers and colleagues safe we still expect to speak to most customers electronically.

 

Supporting our customers through financial hardship

We’ve added our voices to the National Housing Federation’s statement on evictions. The ban on bailiff evictions ended at the end of May and we’ve made the commitment that we will not evict anyone from their home where they’re working with us to get their payments on track. We’ll provide compassionate support to help alleviate financial hardship.

Helping those who have been hardest hit by the pandemic is the reason we set up the Alliance Springboard Fund. Following its launch in spring we’ve provided one-off grants to help customers improve their longer-term financial situation. The fund will run until 31 March 2022.

 

Surge in new affordable homes

Like many others, the construction industry slowed down during the pandemic, but as we now emerge from restrictions we can see more and more progress on many of our planned sites.

Our new homes on Bristol Road, Churchill are nearly finished and developer Newland Homes are set to hand over 11 homes in September.

We recently received planning permission to turn a garage site in Nailsea into four affordable rent homes and we’re currently tendering for a contractor who can get the work started.

And our current biggest project, Marina Gardens, is now at the final stages of its planning permission and purchase process. We’re hoping this will go through in the coming few months and we’ll be able to bring 127 much-needed affordable homes to Portishead.

 

A digital revolution behind the scenes.

Our investment in digital transformation to improve our services and the way we work is a key priority. In July we launched our new housing management system, Civica Cx. This new system brings together all our customer data into one system which will mean a better experience for customers when they contact us.

Civica Cx is the cornerstone for more improvements to the customer experience - one key example is the launch of a self-serve customer portal which we’ve planned for the coming year.

 

Care and Support South West Awards

Our Alliance Living Care team have proved their dedication over the last 18 months and none more so than team administrator Michelle Bright, who has been nominated for the Care and Support South West Rainbow Award.

Michelle was shortlisted following her mammoth efforts during the pandemic, when she retrained as a carer so she could cover any gaps and ensure the safety of our most vulnerable customers. Michelle went above and beyond so we wish her good luck. You can read about here.

 

Keeping in touch

We’ve asked the council to issue this newsletter to you on our behalf but it would be great if you could sign up so we can ensure we’re data compliant and able to keep you up to date. You can do this here.