Hong Kong Visit to Mercian Communities
A delegation of 11 representatives from Hong Kong Housing Federation visited Mercian Housing, an innovative Birmingham housing association to benchmark the approach to social and affordable housing in the UK.
The visit, organised through the Chartered Institute of Housing, was aimed at supporting the Hong Kong Housing Federation in getting an overview of the UK’s housing industry with focus on tenant participation and empowerment as well as quality assurance of the public sector services.
The delegation visited a housing estate in Erdington, The Gardens where they visited the Grade II listed chapel which has been converted by Mercian into affordable housing flats. A tenant David Raybould showed them around and the Chinese group was fascinated how the original features of the church where kept whilst converting the building into flats.
The Chinese delegation paid particular interest to the quality of the homes and community environment, commenting that the type of houses provided for social housing in the UK would be seen as of an extremely high standard in their country.
The Hong Kong representatives also met six members of the Residents Forum in Mercian. This gave them a chance to see how customer involvement is at the heart of Mercian’s operations providing various opportunities to get involved in the provision and improvement of the housing services.
The delegation also visited Mercian’s sheltered scheme in Shard End in Birmingham where they had lunch with the residents and talked about their satisfaction with the accommodation, the community involvement with the local youth group as well as the quality of the services provided by the association.
James Walsh, Community Regeneration Manager at Mercian said: “The delegation felt that the standard of our properties was extremely high and that it was clear to see that our residents were very happy and enthusiastic about their homes. They were very also very impressed with the fact that our methods of customer involvement were sustainable and affected positive changes in the organisation to further strengthen the quality of our services .”