get involved in the community

Join your local residents group

Residents groups| are set up by residents who meet to discuss local issues and improve the local community.

Dedicated and hard working local volunteers run the groups and they are are open to everyone who lives in the area.

Whatever your local group focuses on, it’s a fantastic way for residents to have a collective voice, arrange social events and build a great community spirit.

Community improvement programme

A share of £60,000 is available to all GCH residents to provide improvements to local communities. All schemes must benefit the community and GCH residents lead on improvements to their local environments through residents groups. Improvements have included new fencing, landscaping, parking barriers and planting new trees.

Community Pride days

Community Pride days are a chance for local residents to join together with GCH and our partners to take part in activities which make a real difference to the local community, creating a real sense of pride and community spirit. Pride days vary from fun days, information days, clean ups and community BBQs. Whatever the theme they are very popular with residents and great fun.

Please check our events calendar| for upcoming Community Pride event dates.

Junior Wardens

There are great opportunities for young people to get involved, through our Junior Warden Scheme|.

Community funding scheme

GCH provides grants of up to £500 for local play, arts, sports, health, environmental and community projects. We have made a real difference in our communities through our funding scheme. So far, we have funded more than 25 local community groups with grants totaling £13,500. Select this link for more information about the Community Funding Scheme and how to apply.|

Meet the People

Meet the People events are great opportunities for residents meet our housing officers, anti-social behaviour team, senior managers and partners. We will be calling at a number of homes during each event to talk to you about any issues you may have and find out your views about your area.

Community champions

Staff, residents, councillors and others walk local neighbourhoods monthly to resolve environmental and tenancy issues, as well as get ideas of how we can improve these areas in the future. We always invite residents groups - please let us know if you want to join us too.

Block or street reps

Block and street reps take an active role and pride in a block of flats or the street where they live. They care about the standard of services that GCH or our partners provide and give us feedback if those standards slip. Block and street reps have the chance to meet at GCH every 3 months to discuss issues and develop the scheme. Select this link to download our information leaflet.|

Resident inspectors

We train and develop resident inspectors to look over and monitor the quality of our services e.g. empty homes and repairs and make suggestions to improve our services and homes.

Community events

Together with our residents, GCH holds brilliant events, which bring communities together. We arrange these by ourselves or in partnership with residents groups and neighbourhood partnerships.

Sometimes we give events a theme to meet a particular group’s needs (like young people). If you have any ideas for your local community, please let us know and we’ll see how we can help.

Annual conference

Our Annual Conference allows tenants to directly have their say on investment priorities, for example door entry systems to blocks of flats and replacement windows. We hold workshops to help tenants make their choices and identify spending priorities for the £55 million Decent Homes and improvement programmes.