Wythenshawe Works
On the 19th July 2021 the Government removed all legal restrictions that have been in place for over a year to help reduce the spread of infection caused by COVID-19. These included the formal regulations around wearing a face covering and social distancing rules.
However, the Government has urged individuals to exercise caution to reduce the spread of infection. Testing and self-isolation rules remain in place, and we will continue to ask about your health when you contact us to make an appointment for someone to visit your home. Your safety and the safety of our colleagues and contractors is our highest priority.
To minimise the risk of infection, if a member of Wythenshawe Community Housing Group (WCHG) staff or a contractor is visiting your home, we are requesting that you continue to wear a face covering (unless you are exempt) and socially distance during the visit. The same applies when you are moving through communal areas.
WCHG employees and our contractors will continue to wear face coverings, socially distance and sanitise to provide an extra layer of protection. Please note, if a WCHG employee or contractor feels their safety is at risk for any reason during a visit to your home – including where any household member is not wearing a face covering or maintaining social distancing - they will explain this to you and leave your home. We continue to deliver a full repairs service and complete or make safe emergency repairs within a 24 hours period.
However, we are still working through a backlog of non-emergency repairs following the lock-down earlier this year. We apologise for any delays that you may experience as a result. This situation should improve over the next few months as we are actively recruiting engineers and employing sub-contractors to undertake this work. We will keep you informed about any important updates to our services via our Covid-19 toolkit via our website. We would like to acknowledge that it has been a challenging time for everyone and we thank you for your continued patience and good will and wish you good health.
Kind regards,
Paul Butterworth
Executive Director of Assets
Temporary Changes To WCHG Repairs Service During Covid
Our repairs service Wythenshawe Works have successfully delivered repairs, compliance and maintenance services in accordance with Covid guidelines throughout the pandemic. They have continued to meet appropriate timescales and performance targets despite the impact upon our customers and service delivery. In recent months, WCHG have received an increase in demand for repairs from our homes.
This increase in demand has occurred at a time when we have experienced an increase in colleague absence, compounded by Covid isolation cases amongst our trade colleagues. In addition, our supply chains and sub-contractors have experienced capacity issues and have not able to support us in the usual way with this additional demand.
In order to protect and continue our repairs service to customers, we have temporarily prioritised repairs in our customers’ homes. This will mean work in our void homes will take longer to get ready for new customers. This will impact on homes ready for relet during the months of July and August. We will review resourcing capacity each week and keep our customers informed on our current priorities and the impact this is having on turning around works in void properties with timescales for their availability, thank you.
Our Offices
Our Wythenshawe House Office is now open again, find out more here.
We want to assure you we are taking our role in protecting you, our residents, our employees and the wider community very seriously and we continue to review the way in which we deliver our services, on an day by day basis based on the latest guidelines and Government instructions.
Please see below a detailed update on our services.
Wythenshawe Works
Repairs Service
You can book a job via our WCHG app, which has a full diagnostic tool to aid you through the booking process.
In the event of an emergency repair please report this to us in the usual way via our contact centre on 0800 633 5500 or 0300 111 0000.
In order to keep the phone lines free for emergency calls we would ask that you consider emailing in any non-urgent repairs via our online form, our App, website, Facebook and Twitter pages. These will be logged and when there is availability, contact will be made to arrange an appointment at a later time in line with the Government’s guidance.
Before we conduct any repair or visit we will call you to check on your current health and wellbeing, this is to ensure the safety of our operatives who may attend multiple properties in a day. All staff visiting are following enhanced cleaning procedures and will not be sent to a property if they show any signs of illness.
Assisted Gardening 
In 2020 we carried out a review of the concessionary gardening service, we benchmarked our service with other local housing providers and to take the service forward and ensure value for money the service was updated to meet the current needs of those who qualify. The service is now our Assisted Gardening Service and offers up to 8 visits per year between April and September. The number of visits we are able to carry out will depend on the weather and resources available.
All customers were contacted and we took into account the views of all those who responded to help with reshaping the service. For customers who are no longer receiving this service alternatives have been put in place and if you still require help with maintaining your garden you can discuss what options are available by contacting our Tenancy Management Team on 0800 633 5500 or 0300 111 0000.
Grass Cutting Service / Cleaning
Our grass cutting programme has a target of 21 day per cycle (weather permitting) for 2021 and will be delivered between April and September, further cuts may take place in October depending on weather conditions at that time.
Our Mobile Cleaning services will continue to all common areas of our schemes and the enhanced routines that focus upon handles, intercom panels and other key touch points will continue until Government guidance changes
Communal grounds and service charge services continue in line with demand, all planned visits to be undertaken. We aim to deliver 13 visits expected between April and the end of September, then 4 between October and March.
Investment Works
Fire safety works restarted in June at several blocks to continue sprinklers, alarms etc. Heating works have been increased to clear deferred installations and external work stream are being gradually re-introduced, with fencing and pathways resumed in June, and External Painting and Roofing works restarting in July.
Housing & Community Investment
Involvement 
Focus groups and engagement opportunities continue with Remote Tenant Committee meetings established and tenants attending board meetings. If you would like to get involved at WCHG you can find out more by emailing getinvolved@wchg.org.uk or visit the 'Get Involved' section of this website.
Employment Service
WCHG's employment service continues to link with the financial inclusion and tenancy teams to help support tenants who have been impacted by the economic impact of Covid19. Find out more by visiting the Employment pages of our website - Wythenshawe Futures - WCHG
Children & Young People
During the Pandemic, WCHG’s Youth Team have supported young people across in Wythenshawe in a number of different ways, from engaging through daily ‘check ins’ to running a confidential phone line between 11 and 7pm every day to creating a weekly e-newsletter packed with practical activities and places to get advice and support.
They have also taken part in Manchester City Council ASK campaign engaging in “Protective Youth Work” across Wythenshawe. Where in groups of 3, they carry out street-based work with the aim of supporting young people in crisis, providing key information and signposting them, whilst also encouraging social distancing and the recommended quarantine measures.
Assure24 / ASB
The multi-agency Wythenshawe Integrated Neighbourhood Service (WINS) continues to operate and meet remotely to review and progress complex cases. Most ASB services have been done remotely while our Assure 24 team continue to operate the control room 24/7, using social distancing measures and responding on a reactive basis.
Living Well Team
Please contact us to find out how you can access this service online.
Volunteering 
If you would like to get involved in Volunteering in Wythenshawe please email daniel.williams@wchg.org.uk to find out more.
This page was updated on 20/07/2021