A safe home for our tenants

One of our supported living homes in Suffolk required significant refurbishment to ensure it met fire safety regulations and was a safe environment for our tenant Kim. RWP housing officer Helen worked in partnership with support staff from Thera, Progress Housing Group’s compliance team, and contractor New Build Maintenance during the refurbishment work. Here RWP housing officer Helen shares the successes and challenges during the refurbishment.

Meeting fire safety regulations
“For our 1 bedroom two-storey annex, a new external fire exit had to be created in the lounge, and the tenants’ use of their room had to be changed, too. The lounge became a bedroom and the upstairs bedroom was changed to a living/TV area to meet compartmentation fire regulations.”

Successful collaboration
“I arranged several meetings with support provider Thera and the compliance team at Progress Housing Group (which RWP is part of). During these meetings we discussed the design and agreed on the best way forward together. We overcame some hurdles along the way and provided tenant Kim with a new bed and chair as her own wouldn’t fit in the new location. I visited the site to ensure Kim was happy and the works were progressing as planned. Since the work was completed, Kim said she is very happy with the work and she is getting used to the new bedroom. She chose a new pink tub chair which she likes a lot!”

Working in partnership with contractor New Build Maintenance
“New Build Maintenance conducted the work for us and always kept Kim and her support staff updated,” explains Helen.

Dan Searle, Customer Account Manager at New Build Maintenance explains why his company stepped up to provide additional support, including completing some work free of charge, to help improve the safety standard.

He says: “As we were in the area for a few days, we helped with some small jobs, including dismantling an old bed and installing a new one. We helped to move a heavy sofa to the conservatory as the support staff could not lift it themselves. We installed a keypad and thumbturn to the gate to make it easier for the staff to access. We also noticed that the position of the gate lock would be in darkness at night, so we installed a light for them.”

Helen says : “Once work had finished, staff noticed that the new door did not have a thumbturn lock and the garden gate that had been relocated for safety didn’t have a lock either. Dan was amazing and assured me the work on the garden gate lock and the thumbturn lock would be completed the following day and free of charge. Thank you for that and of course the extra work that his team did for Kim!” says Helen.