December 2024
Welcome to your latest update on the communal grounds maintenance service!
Our contractors are carrying out final grass cutting across estates as they begin to focus more on leaf and moss clearances. There will be less grass cutting over the next few months due to the colder weather and hedge cutting is due to start again soon.
Please remember that the grounds maintenance team only collect the grass on the first cut of the season. After this, all clippings are left behind. This was agreed with customers when the contract was setup to help keep costs down, as there is an extra charge for collecting clippings for every cut. We’re carrying our more inspections where needed to make sure grounds maintenance is meeting our standard.
You can read about what’s included in the grounds maintenance service in our communal standards.
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Monitoring visits
Our team now has access to Chequer’s portal, so we can see when visits have taken place and view any work notes and photographs of the standard.
We hope that by having access to this we are better able to hold the contractor to account and monitor visits more closely.
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Listening to your feedback
We’re in the process of finalising details for our new grounds maintenance and cleaning contract. There will be no major changes while the contract is renewed, but we’re continuing to act on your feedback and working hard to make sure these services meet our standard.
We are happy for customers join us on site visits where we can. This way we can address your concerns whilst we’re on site. If you’d like to join one of the team on their visit, simply let us know and we’ll let you know when we’re popping by.
Listening to your feedback, it’s clear you want to hear how we’ll make sure our current service meets our standards. As part of this, we are continuing to:
- have regular meetings with the contractor so we can tackle any emerging issues and keep you informed early on
- monitor visits, including carrying out spot checks. Listening to your feedback on areas to improve, we’ll be checking that contractors tidy up behind themselves, hedges are cut and that plants are not destroyed as part of grass cutting
- encourage consistent communication across all grounds maintenance staff so service standards and behaviours are consistent across all sites and visits.
- share Thrive’s policies and carry out structured training for grounds maintenance staff, including an induction and shadowing to make sure the standards on site are understood and being met. This will also help make sure staff understand the chemicals and equipment they are using, and that they have the correct horticultural knowledge of beds and shrubs
- carry out an estate inspection of each block every three months. Where there are problem sites, we increase these inspections to monthly or weekly where necessary.
Your feedback helps us keep things on track. You can see exactly when the cleaners will be visiting and what tasks they'll be completing online at: thrivehomes.org.uk/my-home-info.
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Your grounds maintenance calendar
Updated calendars should be ready to view by the end of January. If there are any changes to your schedule, we will update your building’s online event calendar.
To give feedback on any previous visits had to: thrivehomes.org.uk/my-home-info
We're always happy to hear from you, so if you have feedback to share with us about the service in general or if there is anything you’d like to hear about in my updates, visit: thrivehomes.org.uk/feedback
We're always happy to hear from you, so if you have feedback to share with us about the service in general or if there is anything you’d like to hear about in my updates, visit: thrivehomes.org.uk/feedback
Adrian Anstee | Senior Estates Officer