2023 - April, Our news

Changes to how we deliver your repairs are right around the corner.

At the end of March, all residents in London and the South East received a letter from our Director of Property Services, Maria Frawley to explain some of the challenges we’re facing in delivering the repairs service at the moment.

Here Maria updates residents on the current position. This letter was also sent to all residents in London and the South East.

As a business, we have seen a large increase in the number of responsive repairs being requested by our residents, which has led to an increase in the number of calls and emails our repairs hub have received.

This has seen delays in some residents being able to contact us and getting their repairs completed. We’ve now started to contact every resident with an overdue repair to say sorry and start to agree new dates for this work to be completed. I’m very sorry for this and the poor service many of you may have received, and so I wanted to give you an update on a major change to the service which we hope will help improve this situation.

The responsive repairs service in London and the Southeast is currently delivered by our contractor Fortem.

From 1 June 2023, our agreement with Fortem will come to an end as planned and will not be renewed. We've listened to your feedback on the quality of the service, so instead, a new repairs service will be provided by Wates Group.

Wates currently provide this service to our many of our Midlands properties. They will officially begin on 2 June 2023. I hope this change will allow us to ensure that repairs are completed to our target times going forward. These are:

• Emergency repairs are completed within 24 hours.
• Routine repairs in 21 days.

I ask for your continued patience and understanding while we get the new service up and running.

I’ll write to you again in May with more details of the new service including photographs of what the new Wates/PA maintenance vans and uniforms will look like, as well as give you an update on the completion of any out of time repairs.

Do you need to report a repair?

If you need to report a new repair then please continue to contact us in the same way. Fortem will be providing the service up to the 1 June.

If your repair is an emergency, please call us on 0300 123 2221 so we can help.

If your repair is not an emergency, it may be quicker and easier for you to report your repair using My PA. It helps you diagnose your own repairs, book an appointment to suit you, and even check progress after you book.

On average, it takes less than 2 minutes to do this, and you can upload photos to show the exact problem. That means you don't have to give a long description, and your repair is much more likely to be fixed first time if we can see the problem in advance. 

Access to My PA is easy. Simply visit mypa.pahousing.co.uk and follow the instructions. If you've not already registered, you will need your Payment Reference Number to hand.

Again, I offer my sincere apologies for the service levels you have been experiencing and thank you for your understanding and patience as we try to make things better for you.

Maria

Maria Frawley
Director of Property Services