As part of my role as a Customer Content Curator at PA Housing, I’m always on the lookout for success stories to celebrate the times we’ve made our residents happy.
To be able to do this, I’ve been given some wonderful opportunities to get out and about in your community with the Neighbourhood Coordinators (NCs) for the Midlands to follow these stories from start to finish and pick up on anything from before my time here that deserves to be celebrated on our neighbourhood webpages. Now, our NCs are very (very!) humble about the amazing work they do every single day, but I wasn’t satisfied with that… I want to take every chance to broadcast the wonderful things they’ve been doing in your neighbourhood.
I was out and about in early April with Jay, who brought me along for some of his quarterly inspections, 8-month starter tenancy visits and sign-ups across Corby and Kettering. Whilst we were out, he made me aware of a brilliant case where he’d used his NIF to vastly improve the lives of our residents on Whiteford Drive in Kettering and took me to see the results.
What may not seem like much of a nuisance at first glance is actually our star of the show, a massive hedgerow that had been running wild (literally!) along the rear boundaries of a row of houses. Residents had reported to Jay in 2024 that the hedgerow was starting to do some visible damage to the backs of their fences since it was growing along them so closely, and asked if there was anything that could be done about it.
At first, the solution was leaning towards the removal of the hedge that would have been paid for by an increase in service charges as Jay’s Neighbourhood Improvement Fund (NIF) wasn’t able to cover the cost of the works. As part of our Resident Strategy, NCs work closely with people who live in our neighbourhoods to decide where your money is spent, and this includes managing which services are provided to you as well as making sure the correct services are being charged for.
Jay felt that it wouldn’t be fair for the residents of Whiteford Drive to have to cover the cost of the hedge being removed and that there was more he could do as their NC here, so he kept persisting with the NIF. Eventually towards the end of the year an unexpected opportunity came up for him to be able to use the fund to cover the cost, so he got right to work in partnership with Dilwyn from our former Estates Services Team to get the most competitive quote from one of our contractors who got started on the removal.
Once everything was in the clear, Thompson Tree Services came out with a skip to clear out some shrubbery behind the hedgerow and cut it down to ground level, following by chipping what they’d cut down and putting it into the skip. The grand total came to £4,382.02, which is a huge amount of money that we were able to save from adding to any service charges or clean-up work for the residents!
Being able to visit alongside Jay and see the ‘after’, it immediately became clear to me just how much of a difference the hedge removal makes. Not only did it prevent further damage to the back fences of the gardens, but it made space for any repairs to the fencing to be done and for residents to do any upkeep – and it provided another angle at the end of the garden to soak in the sun. Super awesome work from Jay! ☀️
If you have any suggestions for a community event or neighbourhood-based project like the one you read about here, click below to fill out the Neighbourhood Improvement Suggestion Form and let us know!
