Westlea Housing provides Helping Hand gardening service

Helping Hand gardening service is a low-cost general gardening service for disabled or older residents and lone parents.

What is it?

Westlea’s Helping Hand Garden service is a scheme available to vulnerable and older residents, those with disabilities, and lone parents. This service is reliable, dependable, affordable – and only a phone call away!

We know that many residents sometimes have difficulty finding someone to carry out general gardening tasks at an affordable price.

The Helping Hand Garden Service is for “extra” jobs that are not the responsibility of Westlea as your landlord. Examples are given below of the sort of garden work covered by the service. (If you are not sure whether the garden work you require is Westlea’s responsibility, please check in your repairs book or call the repairs help line on 01249 466100. Alternatively, you can call Jamie directly on 07881 515 337.)

What does the service do?

Some examples of Helping Hand Garden Service jobs are:

• Grass cutting
• Hedge cutting
• Shrub pruning
• Cultivating borders
• Planting out
• Weeding
• Path clearing
• Rotavating, levelling, and seeding or turfing uneven lawns.

Paying for the work?

• There is a subsidised labour charge of £11.00 per hour; this includes VAT at the current rate of 17.5%
• This does not include materials
• Depending on the job we may be able to source materials at cost price
• We will ask you pay in advance
• We can offer a repayment schedule to customers who are unable to pay the full amount in a lump sum for work costing more than £100.00.

How do I apply?

Simply call 01249 466100 and we will send you an application form and prepaid envelope for you to return your completed application form to us in.

If you have difficulty completing the form, please let us know and a member of the team will be more than happy to help you.

What happens next?

After we receive your application for the service we will arrange to visit you so that we can:

• Talk about the work you have asked for
• Let you know approximately how long it will take
• provide you with a quote for the overall cost of the work
• let you know the different ways you can pay.

We will let you know when we can start the work, as soon as we receive payment in full.

Depending on the level of demand for the service (and the weather of course!), there may be a waiting period of a few weeks.

What we don’t do

Some examples of jobs that are not available as part of Helping Hand Garden Service pilot scheme:

• Complete garden makeovers or decking
• Ponds and water features
• Driveways
• Fencing and gates
• Building large garden structures.

Let us know what you think

When the Helping Hand Gardeners have completed the job, they will leave a feedback card so that you can comment on the service you received.

To find out more

If you have any questions about the Helping Hand Garden Service or would like to find out more, please call us on 01249 466100.