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Hello and welcome to our first edition of the ‘Improving Your Homes’ newsletter where we will be sharing the latest news on the improvements we’re making to your homes and the services you receive.
Since the Regulator for Social Housing began their inspection in May 2024, we got straight to work creating a Housing Services Improvement Plan that will give you and all council tenants and leaseholders a better service.
Our absolute priority is the safety of your home. We’re investing £20million towards fire safety in blocks of flats and £18million to speed up our Decent Homes Programme.
We’ve already made huge progress to reduce our fire risk actions and repairs backlog. Overdue repairs are down from 2,700 in May last year to under 600 in May 2025 across the 16,000 tenanted homes the Council manages. We have now completed 82% of our electrical condition tests, up from 40% completed in May last year. We’re also working hard to better understand your needs as one of our tenants or leaseholders, particularly residents that are most vulnerable.
Over the next year, we will be putting a lot more focus on hearing from you, with opportunities for you to influence how we deliver safe and secure homes for every Council tenant and leaseholder.
Over 100 residents have given us their views on our Resident Involvement Strategy so far. This strategy will set out how you can influence the way we deliver housing services, how we interact and work with you and how we can support the changes you want to make in your neighbourhoods.
We've got a clear plan and are determined to make the improvements needed to deliver a great service and to make sure all Council tenants and leaseholders live in safe, well managed homes.
This newsletter will be issued every 2 months and will bring you news and updates on the changes we are making to improve the standard of your homes and the quality of our service.
Please encourage your neighbours to subscribe and visit our ‘Improving Your Homes’ webpage for more information. I’m looking forward to sharing developments with you along the way.
Councillor Blossom Young
Cabinet Member for Housing Landlord and Tenant Experience Improvements. |
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Our Housing Services Improvement Plan will give you a better service as a council tenant or leaseholder. The plan is broken down into four themes: Ways of Working, Safety and Quality, Transparency and Resident Access, and Neighbourhood and Community. |
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Ways of Working
Ways of Working is about making sure the service is run well, and that tenants, leaseholders and staff get the support they need. We will focus on high performance and will put residents first. We will have good systems in place to support the plan and comply with laws and regulations. |
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| Safety and Quality
Through improvements to Safety and Quality, we will make sure all homes have up-to-date safety certificates. We will keep good records of all properties and make sure that they are in good condition and make sure that repairs are done well and follow new laws. |
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Transparency and Resident Access
Through our work to improve Transparency and Resident Access, we will create opportunities to listen to residents and use your feedback to make decisions, shape services and help make sure we are on track to deliver a better service to all. We will make sure that our data and systems understand everyone’s needs and treat people fairly. We will handle complaints effectively. |
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| Neighbourhood and Community
The Neighbourhood and Community theme will develop better ways to deal with anti-social behaviour and hate incidents, as well as neighbourhood issues, including shared and communal spaces.
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You can read more about the Housing Services Improvement Plan and download a PDF copy on our webpage: www.newham.gov.uk/improvingyourhomes or watch a short video to hear about it all. |
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Repairs and Fire Safety Improvements
Of our 16,000 tenanted homes, 82% of them have now had an electrical condition test within 10 years. This is an improvement from last May 2024 when the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) found 40% of our homes had not had an electrical condition test for more than 11 years.
We also had over 9,000 overdue fire safety remedial actions during the RSH inspection last year. At the end of March 2025, we have reduced the number of overdue actions to 7,291. We have a comprehensive programme in place for dealing with the remaining actions and £20m to contribute to this.
We’ve already made huge progress in our repairs backlog. We have reduced the number of overdue open repairs from 2,700 in May last year to under 600 in May 2025.
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We are conducting monthly high rise block inspections to ensure your safety and well-being, to check fire safety and so that we can identify and address any maintenance issues promptly.
If you would like to report a repair, please call: 0208 430 2000; or report it online via our website |
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Understanding Your Needs
We are working hard to better understand your needs. We started a Tenancy Audit programme to meet our residents, understand more about who lives in our properties and understand any specific needs that each household may have.
We have completed nearly 3,000 visits so far and will complete the remaining 11,000 over the next two years.
For our high rise blocks, we have created a new Care and Support Team to identify and offer support to tenants who may find it hard to evacuate the building if there was a fire. This could be due to a medical condition, a disability or impairment or perhaps a temporary condition such as pregnancy or injury. The team are making contact with all tenants in our high rise buildings over the coming months to make sure that support is in place for everyone who needs it. |
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Resident Challenge Board
In April, we set up an independent resident-chaired ‘Resident Challenge Board’ made up of 14 Council tenants and leaseholders. The Board are responsible for challenging us on our progress with the improvement plan. They will undertake reviews, give us feedback and scrutinise our progress to ensure that they are satisfied that we are on track to deliver the improvements we have promised.
The first meeting was chaired by the Director of Housing Services and Cllr Blossom Young. The Board received an introduction to the Improvement Plan and took part in discussions around the different themes.
The Resident Challenge Board is being supported by Tpas (Tenant Participation Advisory Service), a specialist tenant engagement organisation. Tpas is delivering training and helping the group establish themselves, ensuring they are well-equipped for their role.
You can keep up to date on the group's progress by visiting the co-create page, where all information will be shared. |
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Housing Local Area Forum
Are you a tenant or leaseholder of Newham Council, or do you live in a block or estate we manage?
We’d love to see you at your Local Area Forum this June! These forums are a great opportunity to: - Hear important updates directly from senior housing managers
- Share your thoughts and concerns with our teams
- Connect with your local community
Join us from 6.30-8.30pm on: - 4 June - Stratford Local Area Forum- Stratford Town Hall
- 11 June - Green Street Local Area Forum- Stratford Town Hall
- 18 June - Manor Park Local Area Forum- East Ham Town Hall
- 25 June - Canning Town Local Area Forum- Canning Town Library
- 2 July - Online
Your voice matters, and we’re here to listen.
Find out more and to join us, register at our Local Area Forums webpage; or simply scan the QR code.
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Copyright © 2025 London Borough of Newham, All rights reserved. |
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Our mailing address is: London Borough of Newham, Newham Dockside, 1000 Dockside Road, London, E16 2QU. |
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