Residents grade our estates

In October 2018, a small group of residents took the lead in completing the annual round of this successful project.

The Estate grading project has been running for seven years, and involves residents visiting and inspecting our estates against set criteria.

This hands-on activity involves residents inspecting estates which are selected by the Resident Involvement Team to enable the process to be completely impartial, and awarding these estates a score.

When grading an estate, residents look at shared areas such as

• Communal gardens
• Cleaning
• Communal repairs
• Noticeboards (Upkeep and relevance of information posted)

The Graders also give a view on the general appearance and upkeep of the estate. The estates are then given a grade of Gold, Silver or Bronze, with Gold being the highest.

As part of this project, the grading team make recommendations for improvement based on what they have seen. The recommendations form an action plan for Hexagon departments to resolve these issues within a specified timescale. The collaborative work between residents, Housing Services and Repairs teams at Hexagon has seen the standard of Hexagon estates improve. With only one ‘Bronze’ estate identified by graders, it shows that our estates in the main are being well looked after and maintained to a good standard. This is a great achievement for everyone involved, and an excellent example of how resident involvement activities can lead to improvement.

The results following the recent round of Estate Grading are as follows:

This project will continue every year, and will continue to make Hexagon estates a better place to live. We thank our panel members for their valued critique and contributions.