Following a comprehensive tender process, Two Rivers Housing has awarded two four-year contracts to PH Jones in a deal worth £6.4m.

The two new contracts build on a successful long-term partnership between the two organisations, which has seen PH Jones provide servicing and repairs to the housing association’s traditional fuel heating systems for the last nine years.  

Two Rivers Housing recently secured funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to undertake a pilot to fully retrofit a small number of its homes. This will include the installation of more efficient and renewable heating systems in these properties.

The first of the new contracts will see PH Jones take responsibility of the servicing and repair of Two Rivers Housing’s renewable systems as well as the traditional heating systems it has previously serviced.

Two Rivers Housing provides more than 4,200 affordable homes across Gloucestershire, which account for more than 90% of the organisation’s carbon emissions. The replacement of gas, oil and solid fuel heating systems in its older homes and the installation of this technology in its new build homes, will play a key part in reducing this and support its ambition to become a Carbon Zero organisation by 2050.

Following a tender through the CHIC Framework, a not-for-profit, member-owned tendering consortium, PH Jones was awarded a second four-year deal. This will see the firm complete heating system improvements, installations and upgrades to the housing association’s homes helping it to reduce its carbon footprint over the coming years.

As part of the deal, PH jones have committed to delivering employment and skills opportunities throughout the contract, alongside a number of customer focused improvements for appointment booking and tracking.

We have secured £4.56m from the government’s Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund to help improve the energy efficiency of hundreds of our tenant’s homes in the Forest of Dean and across Gloucestershire.

Over the next three years, we will use the grant to partially fund upgrades to more than 750 of our homes. The upgrades will include energy saving fittings such as solar panels, loft insulation and improved ventilation systems to homes that have low energy ratings. 

Investing in our tenants’ homes is a key part of our organisation’s 2024-2027 corporate strategy – ‘Delivering #Twogether’. It forms part of our promise to provide, warm, safe, sustainable homes and help combat fuel poverty in the area.

As part of that commitment, we have already completed energy improvement work in around 300 of our homes in Gloucestershire, including a pilot project to fully retrofit 16 homes in the Gloucestershire village of Blakeney in 2022.

We have also received grants from previous waves of the Social Housing Fund, (formerly called the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF)), as well as the government’s ECO4 scheme to help fund this work. This funding has helped us install air-source heat pumps in 225 of its tenants’ homes over the past two years.

The government’s Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund is allocated to local authorities and housing associations for work to improve the energy performance of homes currently rated below EPC Band C. We applied for grant funding from Wave 3 of the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund in a joint bid with Stroud District Council, Gloucestershire City Homes and Cheltenham Borough Council. More than £15.5m has been allocated our four organisations in the latest wave of funding to improve the energy efficiency of homes across the region.

Speaking about the £4.56m awarded to Two Rivers Housing, Jonny Jones, Executive Director of Homes, said: “This will make a huge difference for families in Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean who have been affected by the cost-of-living crisis and are struggling to heat their homes.

“It will help us deliver on our promise to do everything we can to make sure that our homes are modern, warm, safe and affordable for our tenants to live in.”

Sam Batt, Asset Investment Manager at Two Rivers Housing, said: “We are really pleased to be able to continue working with Stroud District Council, Gloucestershire City Homes and Cheltenham Borough Council to secure this funding.

“Over the last few years, we’ve been investing in our homes to make them warmer and more energy efficient and help reduce energy bills for our tenants. The grant means we can continue to invest in our homes and make them warmer and more affordable to live in for even more of our tenants.”

We manage more than 4,600 homes in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire and nearby Herefordshire. Since 2021, we have completed energy improvement work in 301 of our homes using grants from the SHDF and ECO4 programmes.

Work on 20 new affordable homes is making great progress at our Johnstone Close site in Staunton.

Our Chief Exec Hayley Selway, Executive Director of Homes Jonny Jones, and Group Board Chair Ted Pearce recently went along to see how the site is being transformed. They were joined by our partners from Forest of Dean District Council and Homes England who are working with us to help us meet the need for affordable housing in the area.

We have partnered with Harper Group to redevelop this site and build new homes for families in Gloucestershire. The former sheltered housing scheme was demolished last autumn and this spring we can see the new homes really taking shape.

On their visit, our Chair Ted thanked everyone for their work on the project so far, before the group took a tour of the site.

Andrew Chad, Construction Director from Harper Group showed everyone the new bungalows, flats and houses, which are being constructed in timber frame. Inside one of the homes, the group could see the wall insulation that had been installed. This is one of the ways the homes are designed to achieve an EPC A rating – making them as energy efficient as possible for the new tenants!

Building new affordable homes is one of the commitments in our 2024-2027 corporate strategy – ‘Delivering #Twogether’. It forms part of our promise to provide much needed warm, safe, sustainable homes for families in our communities.

The regeneration of Johnstone Close is due for completion at the end of the year. The new site will include a mix of one, two and three-bedroom homes. There will be 14 homes available for social rent and six homes will be available for Shared Ownership.

Check back for more updates later in the year!

Yesterday, we officially welcomed our repairs team to Two Rivers Housing and closed down Centigen Facilities Management.

Over the last 12 months, Chief Executive Hayley Selway has been listening to and talking with tenants about their experience of our repairs and estate management services. Following this, she and the team made a recommendation to the Board to bring the service back in house.

Since then, she and the rest of the team have been working #Twogether to close down Centigen FM and bring the team across to Two Rivers Housing.

As part of the project, we reviewed the terms and conditions of the team and made several changes to bring them in line with the rest of the Two Rivers team.

The changes will make it easier to make the improvements to services that tenants want to see and help teams work together more effectively. It will also simplify the group structure and help reduce administration costs.

The team was officially welcomed to Two Rivers Housing by tenants involved in the project, the Chair, the executive team and colleagues at its Rivers Meet office on Wednesday 2 April 2025.

As part of the celebration, Two Rivers Housing also unveiled its new branding, which will feature on the vans driven by the repairs team. The new brand was developed with tenants and colleagues and represents a promise to continue to listen to tenants and remain at the heart of the communities it serves.

Find out more about our new brand here: A brand new look for Two Rivers Housing!

It’s a bright step forward for Two Rivers Housing, and we’re excited to finally reveal our new brand!

It’s far more than just fresh new colours and patterns – it’s a way of including all the things that makes Two Rivers Housing. We’ve summed it all up in our logo, which you’ll start to see on all our leaflets, letters and even our vans over the coming weeks.

Our rivers have been transformed and are now part of a circle, crossing over each other. In other words, they’re #Twogether, instead of separate like before – and act as a badge of honour for our team. Crossing over like this also looks like the structure of DNA, reminding us that great services and warm, safe, affordable homes are in our DNA and at the heart of the organisation.

Speaking of hearts, the light blue river in the logo is curved like the rhythm of a heartbeat – showing how we’re at the heart of the community.

We’ve also changed the font of our logo so it’s now much easier to read, and by stacking the words, we’ve created the sloping shape of a roof.

One thing that’s also changed is our strapline – the phrase that sums us up. You’re Home Now is a statement that’s warm and unmistakeably clear.

For tenants, it’s about more than bricks and mortar – it’s all about security, belonging and community. It’s your place, your home. For our team, it means that Two Rivers Housing is a place for them to belong, take pride in and make a real difference.

To create this new brand, we worked with tenants and colleagues from across the organisation at every level, from our senior management team to apprentices to get their opinions and make sure we built something that felt right to them.

And, as we bring our repairs team fully into the Two Rivers fold, this new brand is helping to bring everyone together and builds on the changes we are already making to ensure Two Rivers Housing is working harder for tenants. 

Last year, we wrote to all our tenants to share some proposed changes to how Two Rivers Housing is managed. It was also a chance for tenants to share their views and ask any questions they may have about the proposed changes.

We received a number of questions from tenants, which we answered in a Q&A document, which you can read here: Charitable Community Benefit Society Tenant Q&A

Our Board met earlier this year to review the proposals and the feedback that we had from tenants. Taking this into consideration they approved the changes, and we started the process or converting to a Charitable Community Benefit Society.

In order to complete the changes, we had to get permission from the Charity Commission. They looked carefully at our new rules to ensure that we will remain an organisation with a charitable purpose once we made the changes. They gave us their permission to make the conversion, and we then applied to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to register as a Charitable Community Benefit Society.

We’ve now completed that process and are officially registered as a Charitable Community Benefit Society.

What’s changing?

We understand that when companies make changes like this, it can cause concern for some tenants. But as we explained in our first letter in December 2024, the change will not have any impact on your home or your tenancy agreement or lease. The team that looks after your home has not changed either.

You do not need to do anything. Your tenancy or lease will continue as normal. If you have preserved the right to buy or right to acquire you still retain this right.

We will remain a charitable organisation and a registered provider of social housing. We will still be regulated by the Regulator of Social Housing. Our purpose is still to provide warm, safe, affordable homes in the communities we serve. 

You can find more information about the changes here: What is a Charitable Community Benefit Society Leaflet

Why are we making the changes?

Charitable Community Benefit Societies are special organisations that focus on helping people and their communities. Like registered charities, they are not focussed on making profits but on delivering services to their communities.

Being a registered charity has strict rules that can make it hard to spend or invest money and creates a lot of extra paperwork. This takes time and resources away from helping our tenants or improving our services.

Many other social housing groups have already become Charitable Community Benefit Societies.

The government has made the rules for Charitable Community Benefit Societies simpler. This means they can spend less time on paperwork and more time helping their communities.

We will still be checked by the Regulator of Social Housing, but we think becoming a Charitable Community Benefit Society fits better with what we do.

You can find out more about Charitable Community Benefit Societies here: Visit the FCA website.

We know that the repair and maintenance of our homes is really important to our tenants and that, in the past, we’ve not always got this right.

Our tenants have told us that repairs are taking too long to complete and that they struggle to get updates and information on the repairs they have booked in. They’ve also said that it doesn’t always feel like our teams are working together effectively, which makes us difficult to deal with and leaves them feeling frustrated.  

We’ve listened to what our tenants have told us and have been looking at what we need to do to make the improvements our tenants want to see. We’ve also looked at the processes that sit behind our repairs service and spoken to our repairs team to get a deeper understanding of what needs to change.

Having looked at all of this, we have made the decision to bring our repairs team back in house.

This will help us manage the repairs process from start to finish more efficiently, shorten the repairs process and make it easier to make improvements to the service going forward. These changes should help us reduce the time it takes to complete most of the repairs in our homes.

It will also bring our teams closer together and improve communication across the whole organisation. This will help our teams work more closely and provide a better more joined-up repairs service for tenants.

We want to make it easy for tenants to get repairs completed in their homes and continue to improve our repairs service. Bringing our repairs team back in house will help us achieve this.

What does this mean for tenants?

We’ve listened to what you have told us and are making this change to help us deliver improvements to our repairs and estate maintenance service. When we make the change, you won’t see any disruption to our repairs service and any repairs due in your home will still be done.

There will be no changes to how you report a repair or your Tenancy Agreement and your home will still be repaired and maintained by Two Rivers Housing. 

We want to deliver a great repairs and maintenance service for our tenants and hope that over the coming months you’ll start to see improvements too.

Other changes you might notice

We are changing the signs on our vans. This will take a bit of time, so some of our repairs team may come to your home in a plain white van while we complete this work.

The team will also have new Two Rivers Housing uniforms and ID badges and will be wearing these from the beginning of April 2025. We’ll share photos of the new uniforms on our website and social media pages and in Tenant Topics.

Remember, our repairs team will always have an ID badge and if you are ever unsure if the person at your door is who they say they are, you can call our team on 0800 316 0897 to check their identity.

When will the changes take place?

There are lots of things we need to do to make the changes, but subject to the consultation with the Centigen team and various approvals, we hope to complete the transfer by 1 April 2025.

Where can I find out more?

We know you might have some questions about the changes, so we’ve created a Frequently Asked Questions document for you.

If you have any other questions, you can get in touch in the usual ways by telephone, email, through our website or on our official social media channels.

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We are making some changes to the vans that our repairs team use to get to jobs in your home.

While we are busy making the changes, some of our repairs team may come to your home in a white van rather than one of our Centigen vans. They will still be in their Centigen uniforms and will always be wearing their ID badge.

If you are not expecting them or are not sure they are who they say they are, you can give our team a call on 0800 316 0897. They will be able to check that the person at your door is one of our team. From April, you’ll start to see our new look vans in and around the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. We’ll share the new designs with you here, when they are ready and also on our social media channels. So, keep your eyes peeled!

The latest edition of our Tenant Topics magazine is out now!

In this issue read how one tenant is on a mission to prove fitness really is for everyone, find out who won our tenant Garden Competition and meet our two new executive directors Jonny and Liz.

Plus, where to go for help with your finances, important fire safety tips and advice and our Annual Review.

We know that the repairs and maintenance of our homes is really important to our tenants and, while our overall Tenant Satisfaction Measure scores are good, there is room for improvement.

Over the last few months, we’ve been listening to what our tenants are saying about our repairs service. We know that we have some work to do and so have created a new role of Assistant Director of Repairs to ensure that there is a real focus on improving this service for tenants.

We are really happy that Andrew has decided to join us and take on this role. He has come across from Connexus Homes, where he had held the position of Land, Development and Regeneration Manager since 2018. Before this he held senior positions at Herefordshire Housing, which merged with Shropshire Housing Association to form Connexus in 2017.

He started his career on the tools as a carpenter at Hereford City Council and has been working in property repairs and maintenance for more than 40 years. During this time, he has worked as a Site Manager, Property Surveyor, Repairs and Maintenance Manager and Investments Manager – giving him real in depth knowledge of running repairs and maintenance teams.

As our new Assistant Director of Repairs, Andrew will be responsible for overseeing our repairs and maintenance service. He will develop a repairs improvement plan and work with the team to deliver a customer-focussed repairs and maintenance service.

Andrew has worked at all levels of the repairs and maintenance sector and has a deep knowledge and understanding of the housing sector, but most importantly he is committed to supporting and developing his team so that they can deliver the best service for our tenants.

He can’t wait to get started and is really looking forward to getting to know the team and working with them and tenants to create a great repairs and maintenance service.

Our team has donated more than 80 gifts and toys to help bring Christmas joy to local families in the Gloucestershire this year.

Team members collected a variety of books, dolls, toys and board games for the Salvation Army Christmas Present Appeal to support families in need in the Forest of Dean. The team has donated gifts to the appeal for more than five years now and has dug deep again to help support families who have fallen on tough times and help ensure that every child gets a present this year.

Many families across Gloucestershire are once again struggling to pay bills and put food on the table this festive season. The donated gifts will help give hundreds of children a bit of magic to wake up to on Christmas morning.

We know that with the continued cost-of-living crisis, these donations are needed more than ever. In fact, last year The Salvation Army distributed more than 84,000 gifts across the UK.

Major Vivienne Prescott from the Forest of Dean Salvation Army came to the Two Rivers Housing head office in Newent to collect the gifts and meet with team members. She gave her thanks to the team saying: “We never take for granted the support we get from Two Rivers Housing. You make such a difference to our appeal, but more importantly to the children who will wake up to your donated gift on Christmas morning.

“Working with you as we do throughout the year is an absolute joy, together the positive impact on our community is so much stronger. God bless you all.”

Carol Dover, Deputy Chief Executive, Two Rivers Housing, thanked the team for their generous donations and was on hand to help carry the gifts to Vivienne’s car. Speaking about the donation, Carol said: “As a community-based housing association, we have a clear role to play in supporting our communities that goes beyond providing warm, safe affordable homes.

“We work with the Salvation Army throughout the year to support vulnerable people in our communities but our team are always keen to do more particularly at Christmas. The kindness and generosity of our team who pay for and bring in gifts for the Christmas Present Appeal every year is wonderful to see. Thank you to everyone who donated, it will make a real difference to local families this season.”

You can donate to the Salvation Army Christmas appeal or find out other ways to get involved, by contacting your local branch or by visiting www.salvationarmy.org.uk.