Meeting your housing needs
Repairing, maintaining and improving homes
We know how important it is for your home to be warm, safe and comfortable.
Between April 2020 and March 2021, we spent £1,393,000 on responsive repairs, maintenance and improvements.
99.8%
of emergency* repairs responded to within 24 hours.
98.6%
of urgent** and routine*** repairs completed within 10 (urgent) or 20 (routine) days.
99.45%
of repairs appointments kept.
12
boilers installed at a total cost of £35,154.
19
kitchens and 7 bathrooms installed at a total cost of £108k.
Due to the unavoidable impact of COVID-19 during the last year, it has been our priority to keep essential services running without disruption. We decided to minimise planned works due to lockdown and the disruption our customers were already facing.
We adapted to the unprecedented challenges by working around isolation and shielding, social distancing, caring responsibilities, humanitarian support, and prioritising everybody’s health, well-being, and safety.
*Emergency repairs are incidents that could result in an immediate risk to the property or health and safety of people, for example an uncontrollable leak or exposed wiring.
**Urgent repairs need to be dealt with quickly but don’t present an immediate risk to property or people.
***Routine repairs are those which don’t need to be dealt with quickly but cannot be left until we start a planned programme.
Safety in your home
We have a duty to keep you safe, and we go above and beyond what’s required by law to do this.
of homes had an accredited gas safety check - carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
of homes had up to date electrical installation condition certificates and we are taking steps to access the rest.
of communal areas have a Fire Risk Assessment in place that was reviewed.
of communal areas with asbestos was reviewed within the required timescale.
of stairlifts, through floor lifts and step lifts were either serviced or inspected within the last 12 months.
Adaptations
In 2020/21 we completed:
15
grab rails.
5
adaptations within bathrooms.
2
adaptations to doorways.
Adapting homes to become more accessible allows customers to live independently for longer, improves quality of life and reduces the risk of having an accident at home.
Major adaptations within customers’ homes are not undertaken by Arcon, they are completed by the Local Authority. This year, two Arcon customers benefited from level access bathrooms and one customer had a new stairlift installed.
Arcon are responsible for completing minor adaptations to ensure that customers can continue living safely in their own home.
Delays in sourcing materials resulted in adaptations taking longer than usual, while social distancing meant that we couldn’t have multiple tradespeople working in one house at the same time.
Despite this, the completed adaptations made a big difference to people and positively impacted their daily lives.
Making empty homes available
When a customer leaves a property, we check it, complete any necessary repairs and maintenance work, and let it out again as soon as possible. This is to ensure that our customers are housed as quickly and efficiently as possible in warm, safe and comfortable homes.
£165k
spent on improving empty properties so they were ready for new tenants.
22 days
The average time it took for us to check an empty property, carry out minor repairs and let it out to a new family or tenant.
The pandemic meant that we couldn’t let empty properties in the first few months of 2020 except for emergencies, and when we carried out repair work in the properties, we had to ensure that we did this safely. This included reducing the number of people who could work in a property at one time.
Customers also often experienced delays in either moving into or out of a property due to COVID-19 isolation periods. This led to a higher number of empty properties and the length of time taken to re-let some was longer than usual.
Collecting rent
Collecting monthly payments ensures that we can continue to provide our range of services, including repairs. Paying your rent on time also helps to keep rents as low as possible.
100.06%
of rent collected.
2
fewer households in rent arrears at March 2021, compared to at March 2020.
In a year when money’s been tight for many, we’ve done more to reassure and support those struggling financially.
Our money advice and employment support services helped many of our customers obtain support and entitlements, resulting in more money in their pockets. This is detailed further later in the report on page 6.
If you’re struggling to pay your bills, please contact us. We’ll do what we can to help.
Phone: 0161 214 4120, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Email: customerservice@arcon.org.uk
Website: www.arcon.org.uk/contact-us
Arcon customer app: Available for download from Google Play or the App Store.
Providing new homes
We provide new homes to address the shortage of quality affordable housing.
Developing and acquiring new properties helps us to keep rents as low as possible for everyone and prevent more people from being at risk of homelessness.
We apply for funding to help us build and acquire new homes for rent and some shared ownership. This generates extra income that we can reinvest to improve our older properties, develop new homes to meet demand where we can, provide essential community services and keep rent levels affordable.
new energy efficient homes completed between April 2020 and March 2021 (15 Arcon and 95 Bolton at Home).
new homes currently under construction as part of our own developments, with 12 expected to be ready for tenants by March 2022.
new homes ready to start construction next year.
more new homes are forecast to be acquired through Section 106 Affordable Housing Agreements, available from 2023 onwards.
We’re currently providing more new homes than at any time since Arcon was formed over 40 years ago.
The housing crisis across the country has been well documented and we continue to strive to provide new homes and do all we can to meet local demand.
Lucy’s case study
“The shared-ownership scheme with Arcon has enabled me to buy my first home and move out of my parents' house. I wouldn’t have been able to move in to a property like this without the scheme.
I would definitely recommend Arcon and the shared ownership scheme to others. I think it's great and helps people who have a low deposit get onto the property ladder. Arcon helped me get everything sorted at the beginning with the eligibility process and when I moved in, I had a couple of minor snags but they sorted them straight away – they were great to deal with and always really prompt at getting back to me with any queries I had!”
Lucy Warwick Shared-ownership customer