HELP to look after your communal grounds

You can apply for a HELP (Housing Environmental License Partnership) agreement which gives you permission to take on the maintenance of a particular area.

We often find that tenants want to take ownership of planting a section of garden, mowing the lawn or installing pots or decorative features to brighten up the space outside their homes. A HELP agreement outlines our permission for you to make requested changes to the outside area where you live.

If you would like to take over a small part of your communal area, we will ask you to agree to certain conditions such as:

• Ensuring any pots or garden features don’t hinder our ongoing maintenance work (e.g. if you want to put stones down these cannot spill over onto the lawn as this could be dangerous when our mowers or strimmers need to cut the grass)
• Allowing access to external companies like BT or British Gas that may need to carry out work in the garden
• Ensuring that communal garden areas are well maintained and safe
• Providing access at all times to other tenants
• Removing all garden waste
• Taking responsibility for your own garden tools and equipment

We will work with you on an individual basis to discuss your ideas and put together a HELP agreement that fits your circumstances.

If you decide you no longer want to take ownership of the garden area you can decide to hand back the maintenance to us at any time. Similarly, if the area is not being properly looked after we will resume responsibility for its upkeep.

For more details about applying for a HELP agreement talk to your Local Housing Office.