Case Studies
Brockley
Background
The Brockley Private Finance Initiative (PFI) took over the management of 1838 homes in the Brockley area of Lewisham in 2007. The PFI consortium consists of Regenter (joint venture between Pinnacle Regeneration Group and John Laing Social Infrastructure) providing funding and acting as the principle liaison with Lewisham Council; Pinnacle PSG, providing the housing management and estate services; Equipe Regeneration undertaking day to day responsive repairs; and Higgins Construction, responsible for the refurbishment.
The Brockley PFI community is a mixture of small to medium sized estates and a large number of street properties. A number of properties managed by Pinnacle PSG are in the Brockley Conservation Area.
Delivering on commitments
The main aim of the 20 year project is to refurbish all homes in line with the Government’s Decent Homes Initiative and to provide an excellent housing management and repairs service. The refurbishment was due to be undertaken in the first three years of the contract, but was completed six months ahead of schedule, which means the remainder of the contract will now focus on managing the homes and repairs.
Pinnacle PSG is committed to provide a high level of customer care and making the environment a better place for our residents to live.
- Quarterly estate inspections are undertaken with residents to identify issues around, repairs, caretaking and grounds maintenance, allowing us to take their views and suggestions on board.
- We have cleared overgrown and unusable pieces of land on estates and transformed them into recreational areas for residents.
- A programme of replanting flower beds and creating new ones has been in operation since the start of the contract, making a considerable difference to communal garden areas.
- We have introduced a deep cleaning programme for each block
- We work closely with the Police, the Police Community Support Officers (PCSO), the local authority Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) Team and other relevant agencies to ensure that incidents of ASB are dealt with effectively.
Working with the community
Pinnacle PSG places great importance on its relationship with its residents and the local community and enormous progress has been made since the contract commenced. From a starting point of nil, today there are:
- Five active and accredited tenant and residents’ associations
- A residents’ board, meeting on a monthly basis to discuss issues that affect the whole area and to consult on statutory matters
- A leasehold association
Also, in partnership with residents, we have:
- Introduced a controlled parking scheme on an estate near the local train station after residents were unable to park on their estate due to commuter parking.
- Assisted them to bid for and win funding of £100,000 to install children's playgrounds on two estates.
- Planted a mini orchard behind a housing block and we are continuing to work with them to develop a seating area and communal garden. We also assisted these residents to secure funding to refurbish an unused storage room for use as a meeting room.
- Assisted with the search for a site to house a ‘grow your own’ community garden on one estate and have received funding for a children’s summer gardening project
- Provided organisational and financial support for a range of community fundays, trips to the seaside and BBQs.
Measuring Pinnacle PSG’s success
Pinnacle PSG has exceeded its targets in delivering high levels of customer satisfaction. Each year we carry out a Resident Satisfaction Survey. This year satisfaction rates of 80% were achieved for cleaning, 84.29% for grounds maintenance, 74.57% for the housing management service; and 76% for opportunities for participation in management and decision making.
Typical comments from the survey included “Happy with all the service Pinnacle PSG provides” and “Since Pinnacle PSG has taken over, things are better”.
