~ Raising Housing Standards ... continuous improvement in housing quality and service performance

~ Building Successful Communities ... investment making a lasting contribution to regeneration in Leeds

~ Promoting Inclusion ... building on experience and extending opportunities for social and economic inclusion

More Awards for Connect Housing
Connect Housing' latest development scheme won the Best National Home Improvement Council Award. The scheme, in Chapeltown, has seen the "de-conversion" of four properties from flats back into family homes. The new homes incorporate energy saving measures such as efficient boilers, insulation to walls, floors and roofspaces, and solar hot water heating. The project was put together as a pilot scheme and has been so successful that Connect Housing and two other housing association partners have won additional funding from the Housing Corporation to do the same to a further 31 properties in the area.
For more information please contact Corporate Services or call the Regeneration Services Department on 0113 285-0419.

Design Excellence
One of Connect Housing addresses in Harehills Avenue has been transformed from five run down bedsits to three 2-bed flats, each with their own entrance. The two ground floor flats are particularly light, airy and spacious whilst the top floor flat is smaller, but just as well-designed. These flats also have a secure area where bikes can be stored on the ground floor. Each has had sound insulation as well as energy efficient features installed and will no doubt appeal to many of our tenants and people on our waiting list. The Housing Corporation has given generous grant aid which keeps the rents down and the tenants of these flats will also have the right to acquire.
For more information please contact Corporate Services or call the Regeneration Services Department on 0113 285-0419.

European Project selects Connect Housings’ Hostel as best practice model

The EC-funded Co-Op Project chose Connect Housings’ short-stay hostel for women and children as an example of best practice for partnership working for the benefit of women at risk of homelessness. The project was one of three Leeds-based examples selected to take part in a European exchange programme, looking at housing with support across Europe.

Connect Housings’ European partners especially praised the hostel for providing additional floating support to help women to settle and reduce the risk of future homelessness. European practitioners involved in the exchange were impressed with Connect Housings’ level of tenant involvement when developing services and were keen to adopt similar practices as far as their national context allowed.

The aim of the project is to allow housing practitioners and policy makers to gain knowledge from each other, to learn to understand why different solutions work in different local contexts and to apply what they have learnt to their own services.

The project is about to conclude, with a manual and website being produced, including details of all the best practice case studies and a list of lessons learnt by all national teams. The partners also agreed a list of recommendations to policy makers and practitioners. Each national team will decide how to disseminate the findings at national, regional and local level.
Other Leeds-based examples of good practice in partnership working were St Anne’s Alcohol Services and Leeds Refugee and Asylum Service.

For more informaton download the linked Co-Op Project Synopsis.

More information on the project, as well as all COOP reports, can be found at: http://www.srz-gmbh.com/coop.

Project coordinator and main contact:
Heidrun Feigelfeld
SRZ Stadt+Regionalforschung GmbH
Lindengasse 26/2/3
A 1070 WIEN
AUSTRIA
Tel ++43 1 523 89 53 12
Fax ++43 1 523 89 53 5
hf@srz-gmbh.com

For a link to the Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, as the UK coordinator of the project, please click here.