COVID-19 NOTICE

---

  We are committed to doing all that we can to ensure the health and safety of our tenants, staff, contractors and visitors.

We continue to follow the advice and guidance on a weekly basis from Public Health England and the government. 

Our managers and housing assistant will primarily be working from home and will visit the Orchard only to deal with matters which cannot be done electronically. All staff will continue to have remote access to the computer systems while working from home. Office phone numbers will be diverted to the manager’s mobile phones Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm.

Our communal room and computer rooms remain closed. The laundry room remains one person at a time. The communal room/kitchen and toilet are available for staff use only.

We will continue an emergency only repairs service, which means we will carry out urgent repairs only, to ensure our tenants’ homes are safe and secure. 

The handyman continues to carry out the regular weekly maintenance around the site and has a weekly disinfection routine, including external benches. The cleaners continue to visit twice a week and the Gardeners continue to maintain our beautiful grounds.

Tenants can contact the managers by telephone or email, and  

we have implemented a weekly telephone call to all tenants during the lockdown period as of today 5th November. We want to ensure that everyone remains well here at the Orchard and that those who may need added assistance during these times, gets it.

We are continuing to accept applications for flats but are not currently carrying out interviews. We will update the website when interviews are due to restart. 

It is imperative that we all continue to follow the government’s social distancing guidance to prevent further spread of the coronavirus, COVID-19, to protect ourselves, those around us and especially the NHS.

As such, we are encouraging our tenants to stay alert and we provide them with fortnightly government recommendations/ updates on best practices.

Similarly, we encourage all tradespersons to the Orchard to keep in mind that many of our tenants fall within the ‘at-risk group’, so please:

ONLY VISIT WHERE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, 

WEAR A MASK

AND

KEEP A 2 METRE (6 FT) DISTANCE.