North Region News
Great Places and EFL club team up for weight loss goal
Great Places and Blackpool FC have teamed up to help people lose weight and improve their health and wellbeing.
We have given £5,000 to the Seasiders to fund the FIT Blackpool Programme, a weight management initiative which helps educate people around improving fitness levels, nutrition and general wellbeing.
The programme, which will run in different cohorts across 2025, runs separate classes for men and women and covers gender-specific topics and exercise routines.
The programme is aiming to have 120 people attend the various courses over the year and monitor people during and after the course as well as signposting people to courses and services in their area.
Seb Draper, Blackpool FC Community Trust’s Active Through Football Manager, said the first round of courses had been a success, with four people losing a stone each.
He said: “We’d like to thank Great Places for their support as we work together to help people live a healthier life.
“The programme aims to help people re-evaluate their relationship with food, what goes into the food they buy, how to cook healthier and nutritious meals and giving them the tools they need for a healthier lifestyle.
“We want to support as many people as possible, so if you interested in losing weight, becoming fitter, and living a healthier lifestyle, please contact us on fitfans@bfcct.co.uk.”
Dustin has a Great day at Blackpool Jobs Fair
Before Dustin Davolls went to the jobs fair in February, organised by Blackpool South MP Chris Webb, life was difficult.
Work had dried up for the self-employed builder and he went to the Winter Gardens hoping for good news.
Fast forward a month and Dustin was part of the Great Places’ family as a general builder in the Blackpool area.
It’s been a huge change for Dustin, who has worked in the building trade since he was 18.
He said: “I did my qualifications at Blackpool and Fylde College and have been in the trade since I was 18, either self-employed or for a company.
“I was struggling for work over Christmas and into the New Year, so I decided to go to the jobs fair and came across Great Places. They said I’d be a perfect for the job they had available, so I applied, got an interview and then got the job.
“The job is perfect and I’m enjoying it. Customer service is very important to me. Being self-employed, you are only as good as your last job so it’s important to do a good job.
“And being from the local area, it’s nice to give something back to the community I live in.”
He added: “The future is looking bright. I’m more chilled, I love my job and I’m hoping to work my way up through the ranks and maybe become a manager.”
At Great Places we are always looking to recruit great people to join our team.
Helping Idle Women bloom
Great Places has provided £7,500 funding to an Accrington-based arts and social justice project that operates across Blackburn, Accrington and Nelson.
The funding supports a new programme of activities for women to explore health through relationships with plants and each other.
The funding, from the Great Places Resilience Fund, will be used to run a series of monthly workshops to introduce medicinal plants through the seasons.
These activities will take place in their newly created Physic Garden which nestles between a terraced street and the Leeds to Liverpool Canal in Nelson.
The Physic Garden was purchased by the community through crowdfunding and landscaping was done entirely by hand by women throughout the pandemic.
Every plant in the Physic Garden – over 130 at the last count – is medicinal, some are familiar sights in Lancashire, and some are much less common. Many of the plants are used all over the world to support health.
Through the plants and the seasons, the workshops and conversations held in the garden explore issues that women share, about health, stress, food, recovery, belonging and happiness.
Visit Idle Women on Instagram @idle_women or at www.idlewomen.org for further information.
Working Wardrobe helping customers get dressed to impress
Great Places has launched Blackburn’s first Working Wardrobe – aimed at helping people get dressed to impress for job interviews.
The Community Investment Team has converted an unused room at Bowland House, on Primrose Bank, into the Working Wardrobe – which will house interview clothes in all shapes and sizes to help people bag the job they want.
The Working Wardrobe can be accessed by all Lancashire Great Places customers and by non-tenants from Blackburn with Darwen referred in by the job centre, with colleagues also providing CV writing tips and interview techniques.
For Great Places’ customers who can’t get to Bowland House, colleagues will provide a virtual service where customers can have a video call with a colleague in which they can discuss the interview, choose some clothes and have them delivered.
The initiative was officially launched in May, with an event with partners to explain how the scheme will work.
Employability Coach Stacey Fletcher, who helped to drive the Working Wardrobe project, said: “We are delighted to have launched the Working Wardrobe at Bowland House because we believe it will be a real game-changer for our customers.
“We provide a wide range of services to help people apply for positions and prepare for interviews as well as providing clothes to help people feel and look the part.
“Interview clothes can be expensive and by removing this obstacle, we are hoping to help more people into work.”
Great Places helps “Patricia” get a new look
Great Places has provided funding to a sexual health service aiming to raise awareness across Lancashire.
The £1,000 funding has been used to part-fund the rebranding of “Patricia,” Renaissance UK’s vehicle that attends events to promote HIV and Sexual Health awareness in communities across Lancashire, including Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool.
The vehicle provides in situ HIV testing as well as Pre-Exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication at events, with support from NHS Sexual Health clinical partners.
Anthony Harrison-West, Sexual Health Manager at Renaissance UK, said the new branding had helped to promote the work they do and encourage people to think about their sexual health.
He said: “We were struggling with the cost of rebranding Patricia as the cost-of-living crisis saw the price rise to a level we couldn’t afford.
“The money from Great Places has been a huge boost, allowing us to go to events and educate organisations and provide testing to people and normalise sexual health alongside all other branches of health provision.
“We have seen a rise in engagement and people taking more interest in their sexual health, but there is a lot more work to do around the stigma of HIV and sexual health and Patricia helps us to get out into different communities.”
For more information, please visit ren-uk.com or call 01253 311431.
Great Places helps to save Rachel’s Christmas
A huge leak almost ruined Rachel Furness' Christmas – but thanks to Great Places’ dedicated Repairs Team, she was back in for the big day.
On 2 December last year, Rachel came downstairs in the morning and stepped into two feet of water from a leak under the sink in the kitchen.
She admitted that her stress and anxiety went through the roof as the water ruined items including her carpets and other items.
She called the Great Places’ Customer Hub, and the Repairs Team sprang into action.
Mark Johnstone, Repairs Working Supervisor, was first on the scene and, when joined by colleagues, was able to remove the water and start the process of repairing the property.
Rachel and her daughter stayed with family for a couple of days, but as her daughter had a chest infection, it was unsafe for her to return home. So, the team arranged for them to stay in a hotel for a few days.
While the house was unoccupied, Mark and the team visited the home daily and hired industrial dehumidifiers to dry the house out and repair the damage.
Thankfully, Rachel had contents insurance, so she was able to recarpet and replace her belongings and get back into her home before the festive season.
Rachel said: “Potentially not being home for Christmas, or not having flooring for Christmas, was distressing, but we did get home for Christmas thankfully.
“The overall service from Mark and his co-workers was the best. You could see that they all cared about the job, how it made me feel and how they prioritised my daughter. I couldn’t have asked for a better team on that day.
“No job was too hard, even if I was crying on the end of the phone, they were always there to support me and make sure all the jobs were done.”
Overall, a positive end to an otherwise difficult situation!
It’s important to remember that Great Places will always make sure the structure of your property is insured, but our cover doesn’t include what’s inside it, like your furniture, electrical goods or personal belongings. However, we do work with a major insurer to offer home contents insurance at very competitive rates and unlike some insurances, there are no excesses – so nothing to pay in the event of a claim. You can find out more about it on our website.
North Repairs Update
Your latest repairs update from your Head of Property Services
From January to March (quarter four), our North Repairs Team has seen significant increases across customer satisfaction, timeliness, first-visit fixes and repairs completed. Although we have had longer turnaround times for empty properties, we have ended the period with fewer disrepair cases than the previous update. These are largely positive figures that reflect our dedication to improving customers’ homes.
How we’re doing at a glance in quarter four:
- Customer satisfaction: The average customer satisfaction rating for the North region was 9.1 out of 10.
- Repairs completed: 3,623 repairs were completed to enhance customers’ homes across 1,893 properties within our in-house service.
- Timeliness: 74% of repairs were completed within target timeframes.
- First-visit fixes: 85% of all repairs were successfully completed during the first visit.
- Empty properties: 85 empty properties were prepared for new customers, with an average turnaround time of 33 days.
- Disrepair cases: At the end of the quarter, 11 disrepair cases were still active.
*These surveys are in real time – upon completion of repairs – and different to the TSM surveys.
Repairs review
During last year’s Corporate Priorities consultation with customers, you told us that having a really good Repairs Service was one of your top priorities. Over the last six months, we’ve been carrying out a review of the service and surveyed customers on Our Voice to understand what was most important to you when it comes to repairs.
We’d like to thank everyone who shared their views with us! We have been using this feedback, alongside other review findings, to look at how we can improve and shape our future Repairs Service. We have identified key areas for improvement and we’re currently setting out how we can bring these improvements into action for customers. We’ll continue to keep you updated through our regular eNews bulletins and the Great Places website.
As always, we are continuing to work with our customer service teams to actively seek your feedback around how to improve our services.
Thanks for your continued support and remember if you have any questions or need any further support you can contact us via Chatbot, on our website or email: customerhub@greatplaces.org.uk.
Louise Smith, Head of Property Services, North Region