LYHA Customer Bulletin - November 2021
The LYHA team has now moved to our new Headingley Hub just around the corner from the old office. We have sent out a postcard to all customers, enclosed with the Annual Report to Customers. Just in case you haven't seen this, you can find all the details here.
Our telephone, email and online contact details remain exactly the same as before.
Improving customer satisfaction

One of the main drivers behind our office move was our desire to improve customer experience. We want to ensure LYHA is 'easy to deal with' so we've made improvements to our telephone system to improve our efficiency of answering and introduced a short post-call satisfaction survey to find out whether we have met your needs. We will also be introducing a new web-chat service shortly.
Worried about rising energy prices?

Rising energy prices and cuts to benefits (see below) are of real concern, especially as we approach the colder winter months. The Groundworks Green Doctor project offers free, independent advice and support to help you save money on your energy bills. The service is open to anyone throughout Yorkshire, by calling 0113 238 0601 or emailing: greendoctorleeds@groundwork.org.uk

You may also qualify for government support with your fuel bills via the the Warm Home Discount Scheme or Cold Weather Payment (if you receive certain benefits) or the Winter Fuel Payment (if you are of pension age). Please click the links to find out more.
Money saving tips via coupons and cashback sites

Saving money where you can is important to us all, especially in today's climate. One of our board members has provided these top tips for saving money on food, toiletries and household products.
  • Like and follow your favourite companies on social media channels, such as Facebook. If they are running money-off promotions they will usually promote them on their news feed (some may be shop specific).You can often also sign up to receive free products such as toiletries or laundry products, which often arrive with a money off coupon for future purchases
  • Download the apps for Cashback sites such as Checkout Smart, Shopmium and Clicksnap, which allow you to claim money back when you go to the supermarket. You buy the product first, upload the receipt and wait for the money to come back into your cashback account (usually within 1-2 weeks), which can be linked to either a PayPal or bank account. N.B. You can't scan the same receipt for both Checkout Smart and Clicksnap
  • Find out when supermarket clearance days and yellow sticker times are - a friendly member of staff will be able to tell you
  • Never be ashamed to use coupons – they are cash at the end of the day - but a bargain is only a bargain if you need it and are going to use it
You can read a full copy of the article on our website here.
Increasing our customer engagement

We want ensure that we deliver services that are inclusive and accessible to all, which support the needs of everyone, and have recently held a focus group with customers from black and minority ethnic backgrounds to gain a greater understanding of their views. This commitment to encouraging diversity applies throughout the organisation, with a third of our current board members coming from ethnic minority backgrounds.
 
We have recently run a consultation event at St Mary's in Potternewton and have another planned for some of our smaller sites in LS7 this month (we will be in touch with customers in these schemes shortly).
 
We are currently working on a new customer engagement policy and customer consultation is currently ongoing about this, with a view to launching the policy early next year. We are also recruiting customers for a focus group looking at improving our day to day repairs.
 
If we contact you for your opinion, please can you can spare just a bit of time to take part - we would really appreciate it. Listening to customers' feedback is very important to us in helping us improve our services.
Improvements to your homes

We continue to invest in improvements to your homes to ensure they are warm, safe and secure. We recently finished new roofs at St Cyprians and Valley Court and by April next year we will install 75 new kitchens, 10 new bathrooms and 50 new boilers. If this includes your home, we will be in touch.
Welcome to our newest customers in Cookridge

We were delighted to handover the keys to our new customers at Oak Park House in Cookridge near Leeds. The twelve two-bedroom apartments look great and we hope the new customers will be very happy in their homes.
Free training

We've teamed up with Generation training who offer a range of free training courses with guaranteed interviews at the end. Most of the training is carried out remotely and courses shortly running in Yorkshire range include Software Engineer Pre-Apprenticeship (Tech Talent Accelerator) and Data Engineering 12-week course. Please click on the links to find out more.
New starters

We are delighted to welcome a few new starters.
Simon Smith (pictured left) and Fred Thornton have joined us as Property Surveyors. Meanwhile Jeremy Earnshaw and Haroon Rashid have joined our board.
And finally..............

You should have recently received a copy of our Annual Report to Customers in the post. If you haven't got this please click on this link to the digital version.
We would like to receive feedback and suggestions from customers about content you would like to see in future bulletins. Similarly, if you would like to receive these in large print or any other language options, please contact georgina.thompson@lyha.co.uk
Leeds & Yorkshire Housing Association | 0113 2783335 | georgina.thompson@lyha.co.uk | www.lyha.co.uk