Your home
Our first priority as a landlord will always be to provide safe and comfortable homes for residents. We continue to fulfil all regulatory responsibilities and often do more than we are legally required to do, reflecting the ongoing importance we place on this.
Safety during 2020/2021
We rely on residents who allow us into your homes to complete the important safety checks we need to carry out. Thank you for supporting us with this during the past year. During 2020/21, for all properties we had:
100%
Gas safety certificates in place
100%
Electrical safety certificates in place
100%
Fire risk assessments in place
Fire safety
We continue to place huge importance on the fire safety measures we have in place across all our properties, and to support residents to get advice on staying safe and well in your homes.
Fire inspections and evacuation procedures
At least every three years a qualified fire assessor carries out a detailed inspection in each block of flats, with our staff regularly checking communal spaces and working with residents to keep them safe. Fire evacuation procedures are in place for each block and you can also see them at www.settlegroup.org.uk/fire-evacuation-procedures
Safe and well visits
Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue can visit homes to give advice on staying safe and well, including to settle residents. Customers don’t need landlord permission for these visits. For more information on how to arrange them, visit www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/fire-and-rescue
£3.8million spent on planned investment during 2020/21:
687
homes with new boilers
137
homes with new windows
22
homes with new external doors
101
homes with upgraded fire doors
Investment in homes
We know that the investment we make in maintaining and improving existing homes, through replacing things like kitchens, windows and bathrooms, is extremely important to residents. Last year we spent £3.8million on this, which is much lower than the amount we had planned to spend at the start of the year, due to the pandemic. In our last customer annual report, we noted that we expected to spend around £5.4million on this investment during the year however we had to put much of the work on hold to ensure the safety of our residents and colleagues. Having multiple tradespeople going into residents’ homes just didn’t feel safe. We also know that there are things we could have done much better, especially keeping residents updated about changes and delays to the programme. We are now restarting this work and have committed to spending £94million over the next 9 years. The table below gives a summary of when the types of investment will be completed and we will continue to keep residents directly updated on works to individual properties.
Decent homes standard
One of the ways we measure how well we are doing to provide safe and comfortable homes is through the number of our properties that meet the Decent Homes Standard. This is set by the government and includes the requirements on landlords like settle to invest in parts of each home to ensure they remain at a decent standard. Our aim is that 100% of our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard. We didn’t achieve this last year because of the pandemic but we have plans in place now to get 100% of our homes to meet the Decent Homes Standard by the end of March 2022. We will keep this updated on our website and contact residents directly when works are due to be carried out in each individual home.