A place-based approach to targeting support and increasing our impact

By adopting a place-based approach, we can make a bigger impact, provide joined-up services, do more with our suppliers and local stakeholders, and build on the strengths of communities where L&Q residents live.

We’ve appointed community investment leads for these 11 boroughs. Their roles involve gathering feedback from residents and local partners to create tailored community plans based on placemaking principles. This enables us to make a positive contribution by taking into consideration the needs and ambitions of local people while promoting health and well-being.

“By offering accessible spaces, we can build the capacity and strength of small, local voluntary organisations and directly benefit residents”

Historically, our work with local organisations has included supporting their development, offering low or zero-cost venue hire, volunteering opportunities and grant funding. By being geographically focused, we want to go further and foster new partnerships in response to the evolving needs of communities in our core areas.

We look after 21 community centres that play host to local services and activities in areas like Leyton, Lewisham and Trafford. By offering accessible spaces, we can build the capacity and strength of small, local voluntary organisations and directly benefit residents.

We’ve learned valuable lessons from our partnership with Sport England about the importance of building relationships to provide the best outcome for residents. Through the Get Set to Go programme, we’re delivering sports and fitness activities to improve health and well-being in the London boroughs of Lewisham and Waltham Forest.

This has recently been extended until 2027, thanks to extra Sport England funding of nearly £500,000, allowing us to implement the programme in the additional locations of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Barking and Dagenham, and Lambeth in London, and Trafford in Manchester. Get Set to Go has paved the way for an offer that is based on dialogue with residents to ensure local needs are being met.

It also highlights how we work at our best when we partner with others at a local level, from councils and health providers to voluntary organisations.

Our major works investment programme provides an opportunity to generate more social value from our supply chain and invest it in residents’ priorities. Social value clauses are in the contracts we sign with partners delivering improvements to residents’ homes that commit them to investing in local areas and creating opportunities. In 2023-24, this generated over £23.6m worth of social value, the delivery of which is overseen by our foundation.

“By putting people and places at the heart of the services we provide, backed up with the increased presence of neighbourhood housing leads in the places where we work, we’re able to make our impact go further”

We’re particularly proud of our work to support residents through our Turlogh O’Brien Scholarship programme, which supply chain partners have helped to fund. This year, six L&Q residents are continuing their studies at universities in London and Birmingham.

We also ran a work-experience programme with 16 students this financial year in partnership with Wates, who continue to help us deliver targeted support through donations.

We provide a range of tailored, personalised support services to help residents sustain their tenancies and live as independently as possible through debt and money management and employment advice. From April 2023 to March 2024, we helped 244 people into work across a range of industries, including law, health, finance and the public transport sector. Our teams worked with 421 residents to stabilise their tenancies. The Pound Advice service also secured £8.2m of additional income for 2,748 residents.

The cost of living crisis has laid bare pre-existing inequalities and prompted conversations about opportunity, community, health and well-being. By putting people and places at the heart of the services we provide, backed up with the increased presence of neighbourhood housing leads in the places where we work, we’re able to make our impact go further.

Perhaps more so than ever, our foundation offer is fundamental to achieving our social purpose and creating a more equitable society.