Sheltered housing tenants from Brymbo and Bryn Cefn have been treated to lunch at a specially organised event.
The lunch took place at Brymbo’s Enterprise Centre, near the famous steelworks heritage site.
Members of Brymbo’s Luncheon Club also came along to join the tenants for the event.
A community effort
The lunch was organised by Local Member for Brymbo, Cllr Paul Rogers and Local Member for Bryn Cefn, Cllr Beverly Parry-Jones. Funding was partly provided by Novus Property Solutions, a contractor that has been carrying out housing improvement work to council owned homes in the local area. Kevin Clague of the Eat With Kev cafe at Brymbo Enterprise Centre also donated towards the event and supported with cooking the meals.
Novus were able to fund the event as part of a Community Benefit scheme. Contractors that carry out housing improvement work are required to ‘give something extra’ to support local communities and the local economy.
Cllr Rogers said: “It’s been a very successful event and everyone who has come has really enjoyed it. Social events like this are very important to our sheltered housing schemes so I’m delighted that we’ve been able to support this by holding this lunch club. We are planning to do it again very soon.”
Cllr Beverly Parry-Jones, said: “I’d like to thank Kevin and Novus for helping to make this event happen. It’s been lovely to talk to all the tenants here today and I would be very supportive of holding more of these lunch clubs again in the future.”
Extra benefits from investment in housing improvement work
Community Benefit schemes such as this one have been made possible across the county borough recently, thanks to the record investment we are making in housing improvement work to our council owned homes.
£56.4m has been invested in the programme in 2017/18. This is to help us achieve the Welsh Government’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard. The Welsh Government has contributed £7.5m to this investment though the Major Repairs Allowance grant, which they award to local authorities to help them achieve the standard.
As well as funding community events, other community benefits schemes have included boosting local employment, taking on modern apprentices and refurbishing community facilities such as village halls.
Lead Member for Housing, Cllr David Griffiths, said: “It’s vital that our local economy is able to benefit from the huge investment being made in the housing improvements programme. It’s been great to see so many local communities benefitting from these schemes, particularly voluntary groups who rely on donations to keep their services running. We’ve been able to all sorts of positive contributions to communities across the county borough and this is something we should be very proud of.”
If you’d like to find out more about Community Benefits and the Welsh Housing Quality Standard, visit the council website
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