Tenant’s Joy With New Kitchens and Bathrooms

Tenants in Maes Y Parc, Halton, are ‘over the moon’ with the new kitchens and bathrooms they are receiving as housing improvement works near completion.

Maes Y Parc is the latest area to benefit from the comprehensive kitchens and bathrooms replacement programme the Housing Service are carrying out to ensure all its social housing properties achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard by the 2020 deadline.

The improvement work will see every social housing property in the County Borough offered a new kitchen and bathroom over the next four years, with other internal and external improvements being carried out, where required, to bring properties up to standard.

Lead Member for Housing, Cllr Ian Roberts, visited Maes Y Parc last week to speak to tenants and see how work there was progressing. Speaking about the programme, Cllr Roberts said: “The kitchens and bathrooms programme is one of the most significant parts of the improvements we are carrying out. Many thousands of properties are going to be receiving this work over the next four years and it’s great to see what huge difference this is making to our tenants lives. There are obviously many challenges involved in a project of this scale, so it’s good to see that our contractors are developing good relationships with the tenants and working hard to address any issues which come up.”

Cllr Roberts visited the home of Maes Y Parc tenant, Mrs Linda Mottram. Work on Mrs Mottram’s property is nearing completion and, as she explains, it’s had already had a massive effect on her home. “The old kitchen had been here for years and years. All the units were looking very old, and it wasn’t somewhere I’d want to show my friends and neighbours to be honest.”

“The new kitchen isn’t quite finished, but it’s already looking very great. I’m really over the moon with it. There’s a lot more space, the new cupboards and worktops are beautiful, and so are the tiles and flooring.

I’m proud to invite everyone here today. That’s not something I could have done before the work. I want to thank all the staff involved in the work, and the design team who helped me decide how the new kitchen would look. The new bathroom upstairs looks great too.”

The kitchens and bathrooms programme in Maes Y Parc is being carried out by CLC, one of several contractors working with Wrexham Council’s Housing Service, across the county borough.

CLC supervisor, Chris Saunders, said: ““We are working closely with the Housing Service and with tenants to ensure that we can meet all their needs and expectations when carrying out our work. Replacing a kitchen and bathroom is obviously going to involve some disruption to tenants and that can be off putting for some. However our Resident Liaison Officers are always on hand to assists and answer queries throughout the process, as are The Housing Service staff, and we believe the finished product will make it all worthwhile.”

Cllr Roberts continued, “We hope the result of these improvements will be that our tenants will have homes they can be proud of, and that are worth looking after, which certainly seems to be the case here.”