Wolfie helps protect tenants

TENANTS of Golden Gates Housing Trust across Warrington got a surprise when Warrington Wolves mascot Wolfie knocked on their doors.
He was reminding tenants to give the Trust access to their homes to carry out essential gas safety checks.
Each year GGHT successfully gains access to 99.7 per cent of its properties to carry out annual gas safety checks.
But unfortunately there are a small number of tenants who fail to provide timely access to their property, presenting a risk to their families and neighbours. The checks are designed to ensure that all gas fittings and appliances in the tenants’ property are safe and the Trust needs to gain 100 per cent access to protect everyone.
To help reduce the number of properties that are overdue their gas service, GGHT organised a No Access Day involving all of the Trust’s 300 staff. This saw staff visiting overdue properties in person and making extra phone calls and resulted in surveys being booked at 14 additional properties.
Staff from GGHT’s gas partners, Sure and PH Jones, also carried out additional services on the day.
The Trust used its improved resident profiling information to help identify and address the reasons why certain people may have missed their appointments, such as language barriers or disabilities.
The day was also used to help gain access to tenants properties to enable the GGHT to carry out improvement works as part a £105m investment programme. This will see tenants homes benefit from new doors, windows, kitchens, bathrooms, central heating systems and new fencing installations over the next five years.
GGHT chief executive Peter Mercer said: “The safety of our residents is very important to us and it was great to see so many of our staff getting involved in this important initiative.
“Every year people across the UK die from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by gas appliances and flues which have not been properly maintained. The gas service is completely free for our tenants and only takes a short period of time but helps to make sure that our tenants, their families and their neighbours are kept safe.
“We are committed to achieving our target of 100 per cent target for servicing and will impose sanctions against tenants if they fail to give access for their yearly gas service. This means they will jeopardise their inclusion within our investment programme and so won’t benefit from having a new kitchen, bathroom, UPVC windows or new central heating system fitted at their home.”