Making a difference

As a housing association comprising eight separate tenant management organisations WATMOS
Community Homes is used to doing things differently and its cavity wall insulation programme is no exception

It was set up just under seven years ago after Walsall’s local authority opted for a large-scale stock transfer, putting the tenant management organisations operating under the right to manage from the local authority at risk.

Determined to hold onto their tenant-led model, the organisations decided to set up their own RSL and have continued with their tenant-led approach to providing affordable homes for the people of Walsall ever since.

As chief executive Ursula Barrington explains: “WATMOS Community H omes is a housing association that owns all of the stock, but it has a management agreement with eight separate tenant management organisations, so the tenants run the estates. They each have local offices from where they operate the day-to-day service delivery, tenancy management, repairs and maintenance.

“The benefits of the model are that the community looks after its stock and determines the local priorities, responding not to just local tenant needs but also to local community needs. It gives people control over their housing, levels of service, how those services are delivered and what the service standards should be. It is the people actually receiving the service who are dictating those standards in line with the regulatory framework.”

Each tenant management organisation has a representative on the governing board and they work together to determine the strategic direction of the group as a whole, signing up to a set of agreed core standards with the option to set their own standards within those.

Like any system the model isn’t perfect but Barrington strongly believes that its benefits far outweigh any downsides. “It does bring some challenges because there needs to be a lot of consultation and good communication, you need to be prepared to have meaningful engagement and to be challenged on what you might think is the right way to go,” she says. “This brings challenges that perhaps you
wouldn’t get so much in a traditional organisation but the benefits outweigh those challenges and we have extremely high levels of tenant satisfaction and a real community spirit within all of our estates.”

It was the ethos of WATMOS that attracted Barrington to the role of chief executive, which she took over in October. Having spent over 20 years working in community-led housing she knew that she wanted to continue in the same vein and WATMOS fitted the bill perfectly.

“I was attracted by their belief in tenant empowerment as I believe that people living in properties should have the opportunity to shape their services,” Barrington explains. “For the last 18 years I worked for bchs, part of the Accord Housing Group, which provided services to and supported tenant-led housing. I wanted to move on in my career but to an organisation with the same ethos, that really
believes in putting tenants at the heart and that was what attracted me to WATMOS .”

WATMOS reached the Decent Homes Standard years ago and is working towards Decent Homes Plus, including energy efficient measures such as cavity wall insulation and creating a safe and pleasant environment for people to live in.

But with the vast majority of its stock of over 1,700 properties being high rise flats, the programme has proved challenging. “We have done a lot of work including upgrading central heating and double glazing and cavity wall insulation where we can but the tower blocks were obviously the most problematic because of their height,” explains Barrington.

Never one to be deterred WATMOS, along with Solutions for Energy, assembled a consortium bid with Wolverhampton Homes, London and Quadrant and Lincolnshire Homes for cash from the Government’s Social Housing Energy Saving Programme, administered through the Homes and Communities Agency. It was awarded a share of £333,000 to install cavity wall insulation to 10 tower blocks and the work is being carried out by its contractor Burrows Home Comfort, which specialises in insulation works.

Getting the insulation to the top of the tower block walls is no mean feat and the recent cold weather has brought challenges not to mention the difficulties of working at height using cradles but WATMOS and its contractors have persevered and the benefits to tenants are apparent.

“We had to look for materials that we could actually pump up to the height of 200 feet using compressed air,” explains Peter Astbury property services manager. “We are basically blowing polystyrene bead into the cavities, which will reduce the heat loss from each of the flats, reduce electricity consumption and improve the home comfort.”

The insulation programme is another example of the organisation’s willingness to tackle challenges head on and WATMOS will face future tests with the same gusto as it continues to act as an ambassador for the tenant management organisation model.