Our housing team recently transformed a hot spot for fly-tipping into a community garden project.

Residents living in Merton were at the end of their tether with relentless fly-tipping on the corner of their street.

Fly-tipping is the illegal dumping of waste and is a criminal activity for which you can be prosecuted. Not only is it unsightly, but it can also harm the local environment.

Repeatedly clearing the rubbish was only a short-term fix, as the fly-tippers would only return.

Our residents suggested that the area be replaced with a small garden space, that the local community could use to grow herbs and vegetables.

Getting a project like this off the ground is more complex than it looks as it involves a great deal of admin and time to ensure it is delivered to a high standard.

The area was finally prepared and is now a great addition to the street and most importantly deters fly-tipping.

If you have ideas for how we can improve your estate, please email us at estateservices@wandle.com, and we will consider how we can help you.

Read about what you can do if you have noticed fly-tipping in your local area on our webpage.

Now more than ever, it is important to start recycling at home. Once you know what you are doing, it is easy to get started. Follow the steps below and start recycling today.

• Familiarise yourself with what you can recycle at home. There is a brilliant Recycling Locator Tool on the Recycle Now website.
• Do you have the right bins? If you are missing one, contact your local authority to order one.
• Know your dates! Mark the various dates in your calendar so you don’t miss any collections.
• Store your recycling in a convenient place that doesn’t obstruct access to your property. Don’t forget recyclables from your bathroom and other rooms at home.
• Encourage your family or flatmates to play their part in recycling.

Taking the time to learn about what you can and cannot recycle means you are playing an important role in looking after our beautiful planet.

Recycling Week is running from Monday 16 October to Sunday 22 October 2023.

Now in its 20^th year, it is a celebration of recycling across the nation, encouraging people to make the right choices, more often.

This year’s theme is ‘missed capture’ – those items that can be recycled but are often missed.

Throughout the week, we will be sharing information about how to recycle, myths about recycling and how we can support you in keeping your community clean and litter free.

So, why is recycling important?

Recycling at home helps to reduce the need for landfill and more expensive forms of waste disposal. Recycling also reduces our reliance on our natural resources, protecting our precious air and water. In turn, this saves energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and helps to fight our climate crisis.

It can be confusing to know what you can and can’t recycle, so do check out the recycle now website and familiarise yourself with what the different symbols mean.

We know that fly-tipping is a common problem for our customers, and we encourage you to report anyone seen dumping bulk rubbish, as this is considered anti-social behaviour. Please contact us by emailing estatesservices@wandle.com and we will ensure the matter is dealt with.

Congratulations to the winners and runners-up of this year’s gardening competition.

Suzanne Horsley, Executive Director of Customer Services at Wandle visited the winners and was impressed by the creativity on display.

First place:

Community garden – Soul food garden

Outdoor garden – Fiona Allen

Runners up:

Community garden – Queen Elizabeth House

Outdoor garden – Michelle Roche

Outdoor garden – Glen Bottomley & Christina Marquez.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their garden, your entries were colourful and a testament to the joy of being outdoors and connecting with nature.

We are pleased to share the published version of our annual report for the year ending March 2023.

The report gives an overview and insight into what we have been doing over the last twelve months. Throughout the year we have focussed on our customers feeling safe in their homes, including our understanding of damp and mould in our homes.

We continue to learn from complaints and have included a number of case studies to highlight were we have improved.

We have also created a short video that expands on what we are doing to improve our customer service offering.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are committed to driving continuous improvement, and deliver against our vision ‘homes to be proud of and services you can trust.’

This week is National Customer Service Week, and is an opportunity to raise awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays in successful business practice and the growth of

In the last year we have launched our customer experience strategy with key themes:

• Making life easier for our customers
• Ambitious for our customers
• My job is for customers.

Our overall performance has significantly improved, with our contact centre wait time now reduced from an hour wait to an average wait time of under four minutes.

We are committed to improving how we handle complaints, and our resolutions team have been working across the business and our collective effort is beginning to pay off with complaints being raised now at the lowest it has been in over two years.

Most recently, our community days held in Tooting and Peckham were a resounding success, with over 250 residents attending. As a result, our customer empowerment team are organising three community days to be held at our sheltered/supported schemes in October and November.

We see our purpose as supporting people, across south London, who need a home and we are helping to tackle the shortage of good quality affordable housing by providing homes for people most in need of housing.

We want to be a good landlord and contribute to building strong communities in south London and deliver against our vision ‘Homes to be proud of and services you can trust.

If you need to contact us, please get in touch by calling us on 0300 2000 120, we are open 8am-6pm. You can also email us on customerservices@wandle.com.

Due to recent changes we have some new faces in our neighbourhood services team we would like to introduce you to.

Neighbourhood officers are often a lifeline when things go wrong. They also work closely with tenants and external agencies when they need additional support.

We want to be a good landlord and contribute to building strong communities in south London and deliver against our vision ‘Homes to be proud of and services you can trust.

Below are our South-East team who are regularly out and about, ready to listen and support your community:

If you need to contact a member of the South-East neighbourhood team, please email neighbourhoodt2@wandle.com.

We are pleased to share the published version of our annual accounts and strategic review for the year ended March 2023.

Having launched our Corporate Strategy last year, we’ve been progressing the delivery of key activities that underpin its first year. We are pleased that we’ve seen continual improvements against our performance targets and through engagement with our customers launched our supporting customer experience strategy. Through this we have gained valuable feedback, informing where we can continue to build on improvements we’ve already made – and go further.

We are pleased that whilst the economic headwinds meant that we saw much of our cost base increase,
we have delivered a healthy surplus of £24.1 million, 104% above last year (£11.8 million).

During the year we underwent our in-depth assessment with the Regulator of Social Housing which reconfirmed our G2/V2 rating. This gave us a clear understanding of where we need to focus our efforts to achieve a G1 status, and we are working with our Regulator to revisit this rating during the course of the next year.

You can read our Strategic Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2023 here.

Saturday 30 September is International Day of Older Persons, and the theme for this year is about the importance of an age-friendly community.

An age-friendly community is one that ensures we all have a place in society as we age, where we are respectful and included, and are able to live a good life as we age.

To celebrate, local community groups are coming together with Southwark Council to host a celebration and information sharing event at Peckham Square on Saturday 30 September from 12-4pm.

 This free event will include:

• Music, singing and dancing performances by local residents and community groups
• An open mic
• Information stalls to find out more about community groups, clubs and services
• Free health checks and advice from health professionals (from 1pm)
• Photos and films from Southwark’s past and present

All members of the public are welcome to attend and no tickets are required.

Carbon monoxide poisoning can be fatal, and it is important to know the warning signs.*

Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include:

• Nausea
• Light-headedness
• Headaches
• Shortness of breath
• Dizziness
• Sleepiness.

If your carbon monoxide alarm sounds or you suspect a leak:

• Stop using all appliances, switch them off, and open doors and windows to ventilate the property
• Evacuate the property immediately; stay calm and avoid raising your heart rate  
• Call the Gas Emergency number on 0800 111 999 to report the incident, or the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Gas Safety Advice Line on 0800 300 363
• Don’t go back into the property; wait for advice from the emergency services
• Seek immediate medical help; you may not realise you’ve been affected by the carbon monoxide and going outside into fresh air won’t treat any exposure by itself.

*Older people need to pay special attention to symptoms, which may put flu-like symptoms or feeling drowsy down to old age.