Central Region News
Oldham Council’s Leader and Housing Lead visit new Great Places’ affordable homes at Maple Mill
Councillor Arooj Shah, Leader of Oldham Council and Cllr Elaine Taylor, the council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, joined Great Places on a visit to its affordable development at Maple Mill in Hathershaw.
Cllrs Shah and Taylor were joined by Nick Cumberland, our Head of Affordable Development Programme, and members of the project team on a tour of the £13.3m site. The councillors also had an opportunity to meet with some of the customers who have recently moved into the completed new homes.
Built on the site of former derelict mill, the 98-home new development, part-funded by Homes England and delivered in partnership with MCI Developments, provides a range of traditionally constructed homes including one and two-bedroom apartments and two, three and four-bedroom houses with gardens, parking and good access to local services and amenities. The development’s six ground floor cottage-style apartments also provide accessible accommodation for people with poor mobility that require a level-access shower.
All the homes include bike stores and some feature solar panels. To protect the biodiversity of the local area, we have also incorporated bat houses and bird boxes across the development.
Maple Mill is one of six new developments we are currently delivering in Oldham, which will provide a total of 350 new homes, and complements the existing homes the housing group has across the Borough.
Cllr Shah said: “I’m so pleased to see these brand-new affordable homes built here in Hathershaw and was privileged today to talk to some of the people who will now be calling Maple Mill home.
"Everyone deserves a safe place to live but sadly, nationally, our housing system is broken. That’s why I’m proud that, in Oldham, we’re working hard with partners such as Great Places to create local solutions to the national housing crisis.”
Five minutes with Leanne Keane, our Community Partnership Manager
We caught up with Leanne, our Community Partnership Manager, to find out more about her role and how she is finding it.
What is your role as Community Partnership Manager?
I am responsible for developing a comprehensive community investment service offer for customers. This has a clear focus on partnership working, ensuring resources are targeted appropriately. I work with customers in our central region from across the Customer Services Directorate, including Independence and Wellbeing and Neighbourhoods. Some of the main themes of work are around financial resilience, health and wellbeing, employment and skills and digital inclusion.
Have you always worked in the housing sector?
In one form or another, I have worked in housing for around 20 years. I worked in private rented for many years before moving into social housing, when I joined Great Places as a Neighbourhood Services Manager in 2019.
What are your aims and objectives as a Community Partnership Manager?
To work in partnership with internal and external partners to benefit our customers and the communities in which we work, preventing duplication of service provision. To ensure we are meeting the needs of our customers and those living in our communities. I use data and evidence to inform partnerships, initiatives and projects, ensuring outcomes are clearly defined and there is an evidenced need.
What do you most enjoy about your role?
I most love the people that I get to meet. Whether that be customers who attend our community centres; those I get to meet whilst out in our neighbourhoods; or those working for grassroots organisations to support our customers and communities, who work tirelessly to support those most in need.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I don’t have much spare time between work and two children, but I love spending time with them and always make sure I find the time to keep fit by doing group training and running. My biggest achievement was running the Manchester Marathon a couple of years ago.
Great Places supports Rochdale-based charity, Become United
Great Places donated £6,000 to Rochdale-based charity Become United through our Greater Together Foundation.
Become United is a charity, led by Black Minority Ethnic (BME) people. Their advisory team members have a broad range of skills, experience and knowledge gained from working with the South Asian and BME communities across Greater Manchester for over 20 years.
The principal objective of Become United is to create a structurally safe place for all people. The organisation is committed to equality and has a focus on the inclusion and rights of people from different backgrounds and ethnicities.
The funding will allow Become United to run cost-of-living awareness sessions in multiple languages such as English, Bengali and Urdu along with printed infographics to reach our vulnerable and isolated customers.
Leanne Keanne, Community Partnership Manager at Great Places said:
“We are really pleased that we have been able to fund Become United to deliver these cost-of-living Sessions. By being delivered in a wide range of areas both in person and online and being delivered in a number of languages we can reach a large number of people.
The resources are also available in different languages and aims to make people aware of the support that is available to them when facing financial hardship; ranging from maximising income to managing debt. All of this is part of our ongoing commitment in partnership work to create vibrant, sustainable communities.”
Customers can access useful cost-of-living infographics from Become United in English, Bangla and Urdu here.
Helping adults in Oldham boost their numeracy skills
Great Places worked in partnership with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to deliver Multiply adult numeracy sessions after they launched a new and innovative £14m scheme to support adults with learning essential numeracy skills.
Multiply focused on relevant numeracy skills that customers want and need to know to help them get on in life and achieve their goals. This support can help people secure a qualification valued by employers to boost career opportunities and get them on a pathway to further education opportunities.
We delivered the sessions which focused around managing the cost-of-living crisis through the delivery of workshops. These centered around various themes such as budgeting and making better choices around finance and debt, and they had a real focus on adult numeracy within a cost-of-living crisis context.
The session was delivered to parents in primary schools and for some people, English was not their first language, so Great Places’ Employability Coach, Naseem Akhtar, was able to deliver the sessions in English, Urdu and Punjabi, ensuring all attendees understood the content.
We held a celebration event at The Primrose Centre in Oldham where the participants received their certificate and a gift voucher. Ryan Smith, Head of Neighbourhoods at Great Places, wanted to learn more about the Multiply Programme so attended the event and awarded the certificates.
Customers who took part said:
“I didn’t know how to work out percentages before coming on this workshop, now when I go shopping, I can understand if a product has 20% off and how much this will save me.”
“I have learnt so much about priority and non-priority debt and how to manage my money.”
Tackling mental and physical wellbeing
Over at Castlecroft House in Bury, customers received some funding from our Community Investment Team to kick-start weekly football sessions for the customers at Bury Power League.
These sessions have been put in place to increase mental and physical wellbeing, reduce social isolation, loneliness and combat anxiety.
Castlecroft House in Bury aims to support young people experiencing homelessness and needing help towards independent living.
The scheme is for young people aged between 16 and 25 years old. It supports young people to develop independent living skills to manage and sustain their own accommodation, as well as promoting and improving their wellbeing.
Our Housing and Wellbeing Assistant, Daniel Murray, was the one to get these sessions up and running for the customers.
He attended the first session and played football with the customers to build their confidence but going forward the sessions will be led by the customers themselves.
Daniel Murray, Housing and Wellbeing Assistant at Great Places, said: “I feel it’s a progression towards a life out of supported housing into becoming independent and for the wellness of all involved.
“It was also great to see the expression on the face of one the customers who doesn’t speak very good English when he was playing and being chosen to lead; this will give him a massive boost for his progression in life.”
Repairs update Central
Your latest repairs update from your Head of Property Services.
Your repairs service has been busy over the last year delivering 19,116 repairs to help maintain your homes.
One big area of ongoing development this year has been in relation to addressing concerns around damp, mould and condensation for our customers. This has included creating a separate policy, alongside improved communications and support around managing moisture levels within your home.
We have also invested in additional resources to deal with any appearance of damp and mould within a property to provide peace of mind and to address any underlying property issues which may be contributing to the issue.
In addition, all your local managers and supervisors have received further training in relation to identification of underlying causes and all our operatives have received specific awareness training to provide further support to our customers whilst they are undertaking general repairs.
We have also been improving our service offer with operatives now able to book convenient follow up appointments directly with the customer whilst they are at the property. In addition, customers are now able to book appointments 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the customer portal. Both of these initiatives have been delivered to enhance the service for you, our customers.
These service improvements have been supported by the further development of your localised resource planning team to ensure that customers receive the best possible experience when a repair is being undertaken in their home, even when it can sometimes be quite complicated.
We have also been working closely with our Assets Team to identify local areas that require planned investment.
As a developing organisation we have a continual challenge to ensure we have sufficient resources to meet the increasing demands and we continue to invest in our award winning apprenticeship programme to ensure we continue to build for the future and have employed a number of local people to meet this aim.
These ongoing improvements have led to the team receiving 336 compliments and 101 five star Trust Pilot reviews during the year which have been gratefully received.
As your local team, we are committed to reducing our wait time for our customers, and reviewing our productivity for our team of operatives to ensure customers get the best possible service. We are dedicated to delivering excellent customer service, and always looking for further ways to improve.
How we’re doing at a glance
During the financial year 2023/24, the Central Repairs Team additionally achieved the following:
- Customer satisfaction: The average customer satisfaction rating for the Central region was 8 out of 10.
- Timeliness: 84% of repairs were completed within target time frames.
- First-visit fixes: 85% of all repairs were successfully completed during the first visit.
- Empty properties: 282 voids were prepared for new customers, with an average turnaround time of 11.19 days.