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Cakes-display

Moll giving her speech

Road closed sign

Tenants and children

Tenants association plaque 1994

Tenants homemade sign

Bev facepainting

Boy and dog

Child & toddler smiling

Three generations of Ryeburn Close tenants turned out to celebrate the scheme’s 25th anniversary in August. The street party at the Kessingland scheme included a BBQ, afternoon tea, facepainting, fancy dress, children’s poetry and art competitions, and a lucky dip. Orwell Housing neighbours also joined in the fun.

Ryeburn Close opened on 16 April 1994, and 10 of the original tenants still live there, including Debra Ripper. She was celebrating at the party with her grandchildren. Debra moved into the scheme as a young mother and shared photographs of the close taken over the years with her neighbours. She said:

I love living here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else!

Moll Robb is Chair of the Tenants’ Association, which includes all the tenants at the scheme and also celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. She said:

Thank you Broadland Housing for building our homes and listening to us over the years. Without your help and support for our Residents Association we would not have been able to keep going. Thank you too to all the members of the Tenants’ Association, past and present, for keeping this a very nice place to live!

Thank you and well done to everyone who entered our 2019 Gardening Competition. The standard of entries was very high and there were some difficult decisions for our judges! However, the judging panel (including our Environmental Champions and Jane, our tenant gardening guru) finally picked these winners below.

Jane said: “This year the Broadland gardeners surpassed themselves in their enthusiasm! The design, colour and maintenance of all entries was of a very high standard. As always it was a great pleasure to be able to talk to the entrants and see how much effort and care they take to produce such stunning results. Well done to everyone who entered this year”.

All entrants will receive a certificate and winners and runners up will also receive a Love2shop voucher for their entries.

We hope their beautiful efforts inspire you this summer, and we look forward to receiving your entries for next year’s competition!

The everyday experiences of Broadland tenants have informed a new scientific paper on ‘Emotions and fuel poverty’.

The University of East Anglia study emphasises the limits of approaches to fuel poverty that focus on energy efficiency and tariff-switching. Energy vulnerability (EV) research increasingly recognises the importance of subjective experiences. Drawing on the social science of emotions, the UEA team argue that emotions shape and impact on routes in or out of energy vulnerability.

The study was carried out by the Science, Society and Sustainability (3S) Research Group and Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. Their survey drew on qualitative interviews, exploring the everyday emotional experience of energy vulnerability among Broadland Housing tenants. In total 20 Broadland tenants were interviewed, along with 10 members of our frontline housing team.

Noel Longhurst, a lecturer in 3S, who was part of the project team, explains:

The survey shows how fear, worry and care are significant in shaping tenants’ energy use and so can contribute to energy vulnerability.
 
Emotions can also play a significant role in shaping support for energy-vulnerable households. Embarrassment, stigma, trust and care can both help and hinder efforts to ameliorate fuel poverty.

Louise Archer, Broadland Executive Property Director, said:

We are delighted to support this important study, and thank our tenants who shared their experiences with the research team. We are always looking for ways to reduce the impact of fuel poverty among our tenants, from sharing energy-saving tips to installing solar panels and the latest smart energy meters.

The UEA study calls for a greater focus on the everyday experiences of fuel poverty to balance out the technical understandings that currently dominate policy.

Broadland has GOLD status in the Sustainable Homes Index for Tomorrow (SHIFT) Awards. Following our success in 2016, in 2018 we are the highest scoring social landlord. This achievement reflects the work and care we put into the sustainability of our homes and the change we have implemented across the business.