Consultation on Services Charges – Outcome

We wrote to some of our customers in October 2022 regarding a consultation on proposed changes to service charges for their properties. The consultation has now ended and we have written to all affected customers to confirm the feedback we received. We are really grateful for the feedback, which has been reviewed and considered. We have also responded directly to specific individual concerns. The key feedback was:

General Feedback	Our Response
That we need to clearly explain the difference between grounds maintenance services and estate services.	We will ensure that we provide an explanation of what each service charge covers in your rent increase notification.
There have been issues raised about the standard of the current grounds maintenance service.	We are in the process of bringing this service in house, which will enable us to deliver improvements to the service.
There have been issues raised with some of the standards of services such as communal cleaning.	We encourage customers to report any issues with our services including the quality of communal cleaning. It is important we are made aware of any problems so we can put them right.

Following the closure of the consultation and formal review of all the feedback we received, we have made the decision to apply the proposed new service charges, and this will take place from 3^rd April. Details of this will be included in rent increase notifications which will be with customers by early March. Although the consultation is now closed, we encourage all customers to continue providing us feedback on our services.  You can email us on customer.experience@gch.co.uk or contact us.