Estate services move forward

23 Mar 2016

Our Your Place team is responsible for communal areasThe main role of the Estate Services team is to make sure that communal gardens and internal communal areas are safe, clean and well maintained.

This is done either by our own caretakers, the Your Place team in the Midlands, or external contractors.

Communal area officers carry out routine inspections of all communal areas.

Last year, our Tenant Scrutiny Panel inspected our estate services,  presenting a number of recommendations to the divisional board. These
are now being considered and implemented where appropriate.

You said We did
We should undertake service quality  checks on a regular basis. Staff now hold joint inspections with contractors to ensure communal areas are kept to a high standard.
We should review the way Riverside delivers cleaning and gardening services, considering other options. The Your Place team has taken on grounds maintenance contracts, adopting qa more ‘in house’ model.
We should involve tenants and ask tenants’ opinions. We are exploring new ways you can report issues, such as Twitter. Dates of estate inspections will be announced on our website.

We want to help you get involved, and to be able to feed back concerns on the condition of your communal areas.

  • We are considering how best to use social media for real-time feedback on contractor performance.
  • You can find dates of planned estate inspections on our website: www.riverside.org.uk or one of our communal notice boards.
  • In April, we will publish new service schedules, so that tenants are aware of which contractors are delivering services and when.
  • We will provide information on ad hoc services, such as weed spraying, on our website and noticeboards.
  • We will carry out joint quality audits with contractors, setting targets to improve the service we offer.

In response to issues with grounds maintenance, communal area officers are meeting Mitie’s landscape teams to clarify site boundaries and re-affirm the agreed specification. For more on estate services follow @RMPlenderleith on Twitter.