The Pioneer Group is transforming its repairs service this week with a new partner and fresh approach to ensuring homes in Castle Vale, Stockland Green, Stechford and their other communities are well-maintained, safe and secure.

As part of its continuing efforts to deliver a high-standard and efficient repairs service, The Pioneer Group will be partnering with new contractor The Wrekin Housing Group to deliver the repairs service from 1 April 2020.

Director of Asset Management at The Pioneer Group, Dave Livesey, explained:

A reliable repairs service was revealed as a top priority in a recent resident survey. Throughout 2019, we worked with tenants, in particular our resident scrutiny panel, and established the need to improve the quality of our service while developing positive relationships with tenants.

Our team has been developing an enhanced process over a number of months to transform the way we manage repairs and maintenance, leading to a better experience for tenants. Moving forwards, our new approach will ensure that we have the right strategies and tools to provide well maintained homes.

David Wells of The Wrekin Housing Group commented:

We are excited about this new partnership with The Pioneer Group and are looking forward to developing positive relationships with tenants to provide the standards that these communities deserve.

Our repairs team are here to help residents as much as possible during this difficult time. Once normality starts to settle into our lives again, tenants will be able to benefit from our same day service on routine repairs.

With a dedicated workforce permanently based in Castle Vale we are able to provide greater flexibility and control over resources, tailoring the service to tenants’ needs.

Throughout April, The Pioneer Group will continue to work with its current repairs partner, L Daniels Property Maintenance, to manage the existing workload. The Customer 1st team will be on hand ready to take all your phone calls and assist in any way possible with your repair query.

However, as things are continuing to move quickly with the outbreak of the Coronavirus, works will be restricted to emergency repairs only to ensure the safety of both residents and staff. Emergency repairs consist of:

• Uncontainable leak
• Total loss of power
• Total loss of heating and hot water in a home without alternative forms of hot water e.g. electric shower.
• Serious security breach (such as an insecure front door)
• Major structural damage

During these very uncertain times residents will be advised to call back later in the year to report routine repairs when government social contact measures are relaxed.

To safeguard all members of the community the Customer 1st team are also introducing some routine visitation questions regarding self-isolating, designed to protect both residents & contractors and to prevent the risk of spreading the virus to other vulnerable tenants.

The Pioneer Group have increased the investment to this vital area of work with an aim to transform the way repairs and maintenance are managed. Throughout this period the teams focus will remain on serving vulnerable customers and those most in need across the estate; to ensure the security of this approach, the teams are relying on co-operation from the community to ensure that they look after neighbours who need more support.