Minister welcomes Swansea’s steps to regeneration

Coastal Housing’s director of development Gerraint Oakley shows Wales’ Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage, Huw Lewis and Leader of Swansea Council David Phillips around the regeneration of High Street, Swans

Wales’ Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage, Huw Lewis, has welcomed the partnership approach that is showing progress in regenerating Swansea’s High Street and its surrounding area.

The Minister was in Swansea visiting projects that have benefited and received support from the Welsh Government Swansea Regeneration Area.

Amongst the highlights of his afternoon tour was a trip to Coastal Housing Group’s iconic Urban Village, to which the organisation has recently moved over 100 of its Swansea based staff. The Minister’s visit also took in progress on the voluntary landlord partnership initiative – an innovative multi-landowner approach to short term retail letting in partnership with Swansea Creative Hub – to improve the environment whilst promoting culture through imaginative use of spaces.

Coastal received £900,000 grant from the Swansea Regeneration Area for its Urban Village regeneration programme. It is intended to transform Swansea’s High Street, and bring Kings Lane back into use as the vibrant linkage between High Street and the Parc Tawe site. Boosting social and economic development, whilst improving the environment, the newly completed scheme results in a mixed use of up to eight retail units along High Street, with three floors of office space above.

Urban Village is the flagship development to kick-start the regeneration of High Street. It is complemented by a variety of programmes including Art Across the City and the Voluntary Landlord Partnership. Such programmes involve key partners including Coastal Housing Group, Welsh Government, Swansea City Council, Swansea Creative Hub and Swansea BID.
 

The Voluntary Landlord Partnership, a Coastal initiative working with Towncentred with the support of Regeneration Area grant funding, seeks to establish temporary uses of buildings and public space. It seeks to identify opportunities to support owners and potential users to set up arrangements including pop-up shops and re-using buildings. Art Across the City is an artist-led charity offering different ways for people to engage with contemporary art created for popular public spaces, giving everybody the chance to see and experience contemporary art without having to enter an art gallery.

The programmes complement works being delivered across Swansea under the collaborative City Centre Strategic Framework.

Huw Lewis said: “Through our various regeneration programmes the Welsh Government is helping to breathe new life into Swansea’s High Street, one of the key gateways to the city. It’s fantastic to see how the Urban Village is developing. It is a prime example of how effective the partnership approach to regeneration can be.”

Coastal Housing Group’s Chief Executive Tim Blanch said: “Urban Village is a flagship scheme to rejuvenate the area. It is complemented by a variety of innovative projects. Working in partnership, Coastal is seeking to explore opportunities to increase footfall and cultural and social activity in the area.”

Coastal Housing’s director of development Gerraint Oakley, Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage, Huw Lewis, Leader of Swansea Council David Phillips and Coastal Housing Group’s Chief Executive Tim Blanch

WIN High Street shopping vouchers* - Photo Competition

WIN High Street shopping vouchers* and have a chance to see your colourful photos in print!

We’re on the hunt for great photos to feature in our Annual Calendar. 

This year’s theme is 'Wonderful Colour'. . . glorious, vibrant colour. 

Photo supplied by David Hughes - Leaves & Raindrops

Yes, it may be in a garden but that’s what every one will be thinking. Stand out from the crowd and look for colour elsewhere – a veg stall in the market, clothes shops, a row of colourful houses, kids toys, in your wardrobe. 

Colour is all around you. Fill your frame with colour if you can.

Photo supplied by David Hughes - Pegging Out

Using photographs taken by our tenants for our annual report and calendar really is a winner and very popular! It’s also a great way of showcasing some of our talented tenants who are very good photographers.

Please remember, our Calendar is for everyone to enjoy so personal photos are not suitable. They also need to be pin sharp and correctly exposed. Unless your mobile takes higher resolution photographs, shots from mobile phones do not look good when printed. Ideally aim for an original photo size of 5mb. Photographic prints will be accepted as enlargements 10”wide by 8”high, inkjet prints will need to be larger. Thank you.

  

To see some of the photos we chose from last years competition, click here

The overall winning photo will earn you £40 of Love to Shop vouchers.
The 11 other photos chosen as ‘winners’ will earn £20 each and be featured in the calendar, in HomeFront and also on display at our AGM.

The closing date is Friday June 29^th, send your photos by email to maggie.mcturk@coastal.housing.co.uk, or send a CD or prints to; Maggie McTurk, Coastal Housing Group, 11 Wind Street, Swansea, SA1 1DP.

*Please note:  this competition is open to Coastal Housing tenants only.

Coastal's First Eco Friendly Building - Harbour Quay

Harbour Quay is a new Coastal Housing development & our first Eco Friendly building where all apartments have been completed to an excellent standard and have been designed to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly.  The development is at the heart of the waterfront at SA1, consisting of 69 apartments, 5 of which have 1 bedroom and the remaining have 2 bedrooms.

There is a varied mix of residents living in the development half of which are designated for those aged over 55yrs and there are also 9 adapted units. 

All apartments have been fitted with superb open plan fitted kitchens (excluding white goods) and bathrooms which have cubical showers again saving water and energy.

The 9 adapted units, which benefited from disabled facilities throughout, were allocated via ADAPT, a partnership of all the housing providers in Swansea which aims to make the process of applying for accommodation easier for disabled people.

9 household have since moved in since March and to date all are very happy with the service provided by ADAPT and the wonderful state of the art accommodation provided by Coastal.

One tenant described their experience “I love my new home – it’s given me more independence with all the adaptations I needed” and has rated their experience of ADAPT as a mix of good and excellent in all aspects of the assessment, information provided and service received from staff". 

Harbour Quay is close to all of SA1 amenities including lovely restaurants, hotels and shops. Swansea town centre is only a 10 minute walk away along the boardwalk.

If you require further information or think that ADAPT may be able to assist you,

a family member or friend as you have a physical disability, wheelchair user and

require adapted accommodation, then please don’t hesitate to contact Coastal

Housing on Tel: 01792 479200 who will be happy to make a referral to the team.

We've moved!

We've now moved from our offices of the last twelve years in Wind Street to the new Urban Village in High Street.

Doors re-opened on Tuesday 1 May at 220 High Street.  (Our phone number has remained the same:01792 479200)

Tim Blanch, chief executive at Coastal said: “This is an exciting time for Coastal, we are moving to purpose built offices at the heart of our new Urban Village. Strategically it’s the right time for a move, we’ve been operating in Swansea for over 35 years and are continuing to adapt and expand our core business as well as move in new directions.”

“Over the years we have invested millions in the regeneration of the city, and particularly of the high street, and moving to this new flagship development confirms our commitment both to this project and to Swansea.”

“For our staff the office move will provide a much improved working environment all on one floor, with upgraded IT, dedicated meeting space and room to expand.”

“There has been a huge amount of interest from businesses wanting to take space in the Village. As an anchor firm we will be best placed to support and facilitate these companies as they begin to move to the Village.”

Spokeswoman for Coastal Housing, Caroline Williams added: “Due to the move we have a large amount of office furniture - desks, chairs, filing cabinets etc that are surplus to our needs and we welcome approaches from local charities and starter businesses – please email: caroline.belasco@coastalhousing.co.uk

Whilst we are moving...

Our offices will be closed for a few days (Thursday 26th April to Monday 30th April inclusive) whilst we move offices to our new location on High Street.

Our reception will be closed and we will not be contactable via our main number 01792 479200. We will have the facility to leave messages, however calls will not be returned until the office is re-opened on Tuesday 1st May.

Therefore if you have any general enquiries, please do so before 4pm on Wednesday 25th April.

If you have an emergency during this period, please use our Out of Office Emergency Only number (24hr call centre): 0845 6808888

Please note, all planned home visits and maintenance repairs will still take place as arranged. Other useful emergency numbers you may require:

Gas leaks: National Gas Emergency Services: 0800 111999

Our offices will re-open and the phone lines will be back on line by Tuesday 1st May at 8am. Our Housing Services Team will return all calls left on the answer phone.

From May 1st 2012, our new address will be:
Coastal Housing Group 3rd Floor, 22O High Street, Swansea,SA1 1NW.

Our phone number will remain the same 01792 479200

We’re one of the Top 50

Best Companies to Work For in the UK 2012!

Coastal Housing was up against stiff competition for a coveted award, resulting in 32nd place in the not-for-profit sector with continued improvement in performance overall.

All employees were invited to participate in the survey anonymously and their answers revealed appreciation of Coastal’s commitment to looking after their wellbeing – ranked 10th against other organisations. Employees also felt they were getting a ‘fair deal’ in employment benefits – ranked 16th overall. 

One employee commented: “Coastal Housing Group is a fantastic company to work for. I feel it is one of the few organisations in the UK that actually cares about its employees. I can honestly say I enjoy coming to work every day!”

This positive statement shows that we continue to provide an environment and workplace where people want to work. Benefits include generous annual leave and flexible working arrangements with a strong focus on health and wellbeing – including annual health checks, holistic therapies, lunch time yoga and excellent opportunities for personal development.

This is welcome news in today’s tough economic climate despite the not-for-profit sector facing huge funding cuts.

Coastal staff are always looking for ways to improve services to tenants and we recognise that these dedicated staff are our greatest asset in delivering quality services.

We take a Lean approach to paperwork and internal processes and try to make sure that the people actually doing the work are able to make prompt decisions.

We are also in the process of forming an in-house maintenance team for tenants and at the same time create new job opportunities for the local community. These are in addition to recent recruitment of surveyors, IT and finance posts.

This employee comment on the survey sums everything up “Most of the people working for this organisation appear to genuinely enjoy working here and they support the ethos of the organisation. Each member of staff is trusted to make decisions on the ground. I think that this offers a better service to our tenants. The benefits offered to staff are second to none. I really feel as if what Coastal does makes a difference.”

Best Companies uses an accreditation scheme to recognise workplace performance and best practice. Following a Michelin star style system, it awards companies with one star for first class, two stars for outstanding and three stars for extraordinary performance. 

For a further year Coastal Housing was delighted to achieve: 

TWO STARS 

Recognising Coastal as an Outstanding Place to Work

Changing Places, Changing Faces

Cadwyn Housing Association CEO
Chris O'Meara (with her Tim Blanch mask!)

Tim Blanch, chief executive at Coastal Housing Group has changed places with Chris O’Meara chief executive of Cardiff based Cadwyn Housing Association – but only for one week!

Both Coastal and Cadwyn are part of the Integrate Development Group which actively encourages shared learning from the policies and procedures of its members.

Tim said: “It’s been a very useful experience. The staff at Cadwyn have been extremely friendly and open. It’s been great looking at some types of work that Coastal does not do, and at areas where we are starting up, with many useful lessons to learn. Some the of the most useful ides have been completely unexpected, just things that have come up in discussions.

It’s also been great to share the challenges, and to understand the different context in which they work compared to us. Day 5 in the big brother house. The other residents are still friendly and helpful, I have finally managed to work all the IT and to find where everything is in the kitchen. The sun has been shining all week, and I have had plenty of time to think.”

Staff at Cadwyn have presented Tim with a Chris “mask” for the week!

Chris said about her week at Coastal: “I’ve had a great week at Coastal and loved being in a different city. A lot of what Coastal and Cadwyn do is the same, but some is very different. I’ve been able to get more detail on a number of projects which I think could help us and picked up loads of new ideas. Staff have been friendly and welcoming and apart from the faces looking different, it feels like Cadwyn! The culture feels very similar.

From what Tim has said, he has felt the same about Cadwyn. We are all facing rapid change and seeing how others approach the future has got to be a worthwhile experience.

Caroline Belasco, Head of Human Resources at Coastal added: “Job swapping is certainly a worthwhile experience and something we will be exploring for other staff who are interested.”