Housing Association in top 25pc nationally
A charitable trust which provides services to more than 9,000 households has been judged to be in the top 25 per cent of housing organisations nationally for dealing with issues like anti-social behaviour.
The Regulator of Social Housing has this week given the Bournville Village Trust (BVT) a clean bill of health following an inspection.
BVT is based in Birmingham and Telford and provides a total of nearly 3,700 social-rented and affordable homes, with 700 homes in the Shropshire town.
In Lightmoor Village, in Telford, social-rented and affordable homes are pepper-potted with homeowners and BVT also provides the stewardship service of looking after common and community assets. It also provides stewardship services in Lawley.
Pete Richmond, Bournville Village Trust chief executive, said: “We are very pleased to have been awarded a C1 rating – the highest available for consumer standards – following our recent Regulatory Inspection.
“This places BVT in the top 25 per cent of housing organisations nationally and is an important recognition of the progress we have made and the commitment of colleagues across BVT to putting customers at the heart of everything we do.
It is the first time that BVT has been inspected on consumer issues including on tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB).
The RSH found that BVT “works in partnership with relevant organisations to deter and tackle ASB and hate incidents in the neighbourhoods in which it operates”.
“We gained assurance that it learns from resident feedback and previous outcomes to understand the drivers for ASB and to shape how services are delivered.
“We saw that Bournville participates in a range of community partnerships that promote community safety in the neighbourhoods that it serves.”
And on the issue of repairs for social tenants the regulator said: “Bournville provides an effective, efficient and timely repairs, maintenance and planned improvements service to tenants, and continues to implement actions to improve the service and outcomes to tenants.
Assessments of its governance and viability have also recorded unchanged as meeting requirements. BVT’s governance has been top rated.
In the regulator’s viability assessment the RSH says BVT “has the financial capacity to deal with a reasonable range of adverse scenarios but needs to manage material risks to ensure continued compliance”.
BVT’s chief executive Pete Richmond said there is “more work ahead” to keep improving.
Mr Richmond said: “Our customers rightly expect us to keep improving, and we are determined to build on this achievement by continuing to strengthen our services and deliver even better outcomes for the communities we serve.”
Mr Richmond also said BVT values “the contribution of our customers, especially those who have worked with the organisation through scrutiny arrangements and acknowledged the work of our staff in achieving this outcome”.
Bournville is a charitable trust and registered charity founded in 1900 by George Cadbury.
It employed some 233 full-time equivalent staff and had a group turnover of £31.8m in 2024.
