A COMMUNITY housing company has celebrated its second birthday this month - and has pledged that its services will see further improvements for tenants as time goes on.

Red Kite Community Housing owns and manages more than 6,700 homes across the area, and has done since Wycombe District Council sold its housing stock to the organisation in December 2011.

The housing association was newly created for the transfer, which took place after 90 years of WDC running council housing in the district.

The council took a loss on the £18million sale - with the stock having a tenanted value of £89m - but said this would let Red Kite make a bigger investment in improving homes.

Trevor Morrow, Chief Executive said the plan has been going well over the first two years. He said: "I’m really proud of how much we’ve achieved in such a short space of time.

"The last two years have been incredibly busy but really rewarding and I can honestly say that without our inspirational involved tenants and leaseholders, we wouldn’t have been able to move forward as much as we have.

"We’re certainly excited about the next few years, which will see thousands more improvements as we ramp up our rate of delivery with our new team of contractors and innovative ways of delivering even better services for our customers."

The organisation says it aims to further improve its rate of delivery for improvements with a new team of contractors in the future.

Among the achievements it lists over the last two years are:

  • Fitting more than 600 bathrooms and 700 kitchens, upgrading more than 1600 boilers, fitting more than 1800 doors and replacing windows in 90 homes.
  • Selecting more than 20 new contractors to help deliver improvements.
  • Moving offices to Windsor Court in Kingsmead Business Park.
  • Receiving nominations for two national awards - including one for tenant involvement.
  • Spending more than £260,000 improving communities with suggestions from tenants and leaseholders.
  • Holding its first Annual Get Together Meeting Starting its Castlefield Regeneration project to improve homes and the local area.
  • Using customer feedback to make hundreds of decisions and changes.
  • Supporting parties to mark the Queen's Jubilee.
  • Starting a programme to fit free carbon monoxide detectors in all homes.
  • Producing its first annual report video, presented by tenants and leaseholders.
  • Holding gardening competitions involving local schools.