The housing sector really needs to up its game and ensure it has its estates and schemes – its ‘shop window’ – are in order.  The Tenant Satisfaction Measures are about to put a spotlight on tenants’ perceptions of their neighbourhoods and the services they receive. Estate services teams play a vital part in this, yet, their input is often undervalued and misunderstood.

And there’s a lot to consider in achieving high standards – teams delivering a professional, customer-friendly service, engaging with tenants and responding to their priorities, the climate change agenda, keeping up with new technology.

This year’s Estate Services Hub’s summit explores the challenges teams face as they strive to deliver high quality, consistent services in a tough economic climate.

The summit will cover:

• Ensuring consistency in the standard of service across multiple estates – is in-house the future of estates services?
• Partnership working across patches
• Tenant engagement and professionalism – making sure estates teams aren’t left behind
• Fly tipping – building a nationwide movement to address it
• e-scooters and e-bikes  – how to deal with lithium-ion batteries
• Rewilding and empowering tenants to maintain estates.

Essential for:

• Estate services managers
• Open spaces managers
• Grounds maintenance staff
• Housing managers
• Everyone working in and responsible for the up keep of estates.

10.30 Chair’s welcome and introduction

• • Mica Joseph, Estate Manager, L&Q

10.40 Insourcing and Outsourcing decisions in Estate Services

• • Chris Underwood, Head of Centre of Excellence – Estate Services, Peabody

11:10 Neighbourhood and Community standards

• • Lydia Dlaboha, Deputy Chief Executive, HQN

  • Damian Roche, Operations Director, HQN

 11.40 Their insourcing plan for grounds maintenance services following a successful pilot

• • Jac Jenkins, Assistant Director of Localities, Sovereign

12.10 Lunch

12.40 Recruitment – Delivering services with a difference

• • Natasha Jenkins, Social Impact Manager, L&Q

13.10 What can we do to stop fly-tipping on estates?

• • Dr Anna Scott, Director of Services, Keep Britain Tidy

13.40 Fly-tipping

• • Nigel Deacon, Business Development Director, Metrostor

14.10 Break

14.30 Building Safety – The growing risk of e-bikes and e-scooters

• • Sue Sutton, Chief Executive, Salix Homes

  • Liam Turner, Executive Director of Assets, Growth and Sustainability, Salix Homes

15.00 Practical steps to wildlife friendly spaces

• • Anton Rosenfeld, Research Manager, Garden Organic

  • Kate Eastment, Project Co-ordinator, Garden Organic

15.30 Closing remarks from the Chair

• • Mica Joseph, Estate Services Manager, L&Q

Lydia Dlaboha, Deputy Chief Executive, HQN

Lydia joined HQN in 2007 and is currently the Deputy CEO. Her background is in housing management – both general needs and supported. She has worked extensively as a consultant on a wide variety of performance improvement projects. In her current role, Lydia has responsibility for overseeing all of HQN’s work and for quality assurance in particular. She spends the majority of her time talking to HQN members to make sure that our service meets their needs, and on consultancy-related work.

Damian Roche, Operations Director, HQN

Damian began his career working in homelessness and housing advice before moving into housing management. He has over 20 years’ experience at senior level in a variety of housing organisations, including local authorities and housing associations. For much of the last decade, Damian was Director of Customer Experience at Accent, with responsibility for customer facing services, including tenancy and estates management, leasehold services and repairs and maintenance, to over 4700 homes.

Nigel Deacon, Business Development Director, Metrostor

Nigel has worked with many UK landlords over the last decade, assisting with the creation of safer and cleaner neighbourhoods using secure external storage for the items that present a potential fire risk in and around blocks of flats, such as waste and recycling bins and mobility scooters.

Outdated and inadequate refuse storage facilities lie at the root of a large proportion of all housing complaints, including ASB and fly-tipping, and this is set to increase even more with the requirement contained within the Environment Bill to collect recyclables from every household and business.

The fire risk arising from mobility scooters is also well-known, but the rapid increase in the use of e-bikes and e-scooters by residents of all demographics coupled with the surge in serious fire incidents involving Lithium-ion batteries is now leading to many landlords to urgently review their policies.

Sue Sutton, Chief Executive, Salix Homes

Sue Sutton has worked in social housing for more than 20 years, becoming Salix Homes Chief Executive in 2021. She also chairs the Greater Manchester Housing Providers Building Safety Group

Salix Homes has been leading the way on building safety – raising safety standards within its own properties, advising government bodies on future recommendations and piloting and implementing the reforms in the Building Safety Act.

Salix Homes owns and manages over 8,000 homes in Salford, Greater Manchester, including 19 tower blocks, and Sue is committed to ensuring all their properties continue to be safe places to live, both now and in the future.

Liam Turner, Executive Director of Assets, Growth and Sustainability, Salix Homes

Liam Turner has worked at Salix Homes for 10 years, joining their Executive Management Team in May 2023, with responsibility for property, building safety, development and sustainability.

Salix Homes has made great strides in improving building safety and Liam is committed to continuing to develop Salix Homes’ approach to the issue and ensuring all their properties continue to be safe places to live, both now and in the future.

Chris Underwood, Head of Centre for Excellence – Estate Services, Peabody

Chris has worked in soft services for 20 years having started working for a local landscaping company. He trained as a tree surgeon working for the same local company and he has ran his own tree business and worked for a large contracting company. Since 2016, Chris has been part of Catalyst (Now Peabody) Estate Services team, leading an in-house team and managing contractors delivering various estate services contracts. He has recently completed his MBA and as part of his dissertation, he researched into the factors affecting insourcing and outsourcing decisions within Estate Services. Chris currently works at Peabody overseeing the integration and strategic direction of their estate services teams which included bout insourced and outsourced services.

Dr Anna Scott, Director of Services, Keep Britain Tidy

Anna is a Chartered Waste Manager with 20 years of experience in the waste and recycling field, including 14 years in the third sector at Waste Watch and then Keep Britain Tidy.

She is an expert in domestic waste behaviour and behaviour change gained through doctoral research and has delivered over 300 practical projects for public and private sector clients – involving research, insight, and behaviour change – with the aims of reducing fly-tipping, reducing litter, increasing domestic recycling, and preventing waste.

As Director of Services, Anna is responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of high-quality research, innovation, and evidence-based services – to local authorities, government, housing providers, and businesses – which contribute significantly to Keep Britain Tidy’s charitable aims to eliminate litter and waste, improve local places, and help people live more sustainably.

Natasha Jenkins, Social Impact Manager, L&Q CleanStart

Finding a job is tough, but for ex-offenders, ex-military, care experienced or those with additional needs, it’s an even harder battle. They must push through stigma and other barriers to secure meaningful employment.  Delivering estate services with a difference, CleanStart is L&Q’s flagship Social Enterprise in the northwest where they are helping people to achieve their full potential through their 5- Step Employment Programme.

Natasha Jenkins leads the programme which recruits, trains, and nurtures local people in partnership with GMP, Local Authority, and Probation Services. The Employment programme supports individuals to sustain their employment, reconfigure their lives, and build a new future. The programme aims to tackle social and economic issues to create sustainable neighbourhoods and bring long term improvements to local communities.

Mica Joseph, Estate Services and Open Spaces Manager, L&Q

With a career spanning over ten years in housing five of which has been spent in estate services, Mica is determined to continue to work with the sector to improve service delivery across the country. Throughout her journey, she has had the opportunity to work with a diverse range of estates and she is committed to positively impacting the lives of countless residents.

Mica began her journey in estate services as a contract manager passionate about improving contract management and service delivery. Over the years, she has been challenged and developed by residents, colleagues and the different roles, which have all contributed to how she has approached her career to date.

With a total annual estate services contract value of £12 million, Mica has had the opportunity to lead a great team and service which is on a journey of change. Through procurements, the implementation of technology and changes to the team structure estate services satisfaction is improving.

Mica is currently on secondment within the Transformation department.  As the programme manager for the service design workstream, they are focusing on shaping how they want their services to work in the future. Beyond her career, Mica loves to travel, spending time with friends and family and shopping, with a genuine dedication to making a positive impact on her personal and professional communities.

Anton Rosenfeld, Research Manager, Garden Organic

Anton has been with Garden Organic for more than 15 years and is their Research Manager. His work has ranged from projects with commercial field-scale growers to small-scale community gardens and allotments. He has worked as a grower, runs many training courses, and regularly writes for Grow Your Own and Kitchen Garden magazine. Anton has a passion for soils, composting, and growing veg from a wide range of cultures. He studied as a plant physiologist and agronomist at the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham. He subsequently worked at Cambridge University Farm and the National Agricultural Research Institute in Guyana, delivering crop research projects and supporting growers.

Kate Eastment, Project Co-ordinator, Garden Organic

Kate Eastment is Garden Organic’s Project Coordinator for North Somerset Master Composters, a community-based volunteering programme that promotes waste-reduction through home-composting. Kate previously worked in housing associations for many years, in various Customer Engagement and Community Development roles, and has experience of helping to develop and deliver horticultural projects in urban neighbourhoods in North Somerset.

Jac Jenkins, Assistant Director of Localities, Sovereign

Jac has worked for Sovereign for 18 Years and oversees its property services function. Although based on the Isle of Wight, she has also overseen the estates team across Sovereign’s geography for the last two years. She played a pivotal role in bringing Sovereign’s grounds maintenance in-house across Basingstoke and Oxfordshire, and is passionate about making sure customers receive a high-quality service.

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