News 5


CLEAN AND GREEN: tenant Margaret Thomson with GHA’s John Ross Snr and Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Dougie Johnston at Drygate.


Bruce Robertson, Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, on the new partnership with Wheatley


Together we will make a difference


WE’RE really excited about our partnership with Wheatley – and we’re looking forward to inspiring staff and tenants to improve communities.


New scheme to make communities great


Tenants to play key role in partnership


G great. GHA communities will be graded by a


team of expert assessors and scored in line with a new Environmental Excellence scheme developed by Keep Scotland Beautiful and our parent organisation, Wheatley Group. The new Making Communities Great partnership will see GHA neighbourhoods – along with our other partners in Wheatley – assessed against Keep Scotland Beautiful’s national award for environmental excellence. The scheme will also see a selection of


tenants and housing staff fully trained by Keep Scotland Beautiful to help with inspecting and assessing their neighbourhoods. GHA Chair Bernadette Hewitt said: “We


already work closely with tenants to improve communities and environmental standards, but our new partnership with Keep Scotland Beautiful will help us make this even better.


“This is about ensuring every one of our neighbourhoods is expertly and


HA has joined forces with Keep Scotland Beautiful in a new scheme to make communities


independently assessed to a recognised standard - with pointers then given for how we can make that area the best it can be. “We don’t want some of our tenants to


live in nice areas they are proud of and for other areas to be let down by things like litter, dog fouling or communal areas that need upgrading. We want to make all our communities great.”


“This is about ensuring every one of our neighbourhoods is independently assessed”


The scheme has been launched after a pilot in eight multi-storey sites in Glasgow. Selected tenants will be trained in


environmental monitoring, and will go on to work with Keep Scotland Beautiful to grade GHA communities as three, four or five stars – with five stars representing the highest standard. Keep Scotland Beautiful runs award schemes which are nationally-recognised indicators of best practice, including the Green Flag Award for parks and green spaces, the Beach Award and the Eco- Schools programme. If you’re interested in being part of the scheme, talk to your housing officer.


Keep Scotland Beautiful is a national environmental charity committed to making Scotland clean, green and more sustainable. You might know about our


work in 98% of schools through the eco-schools programme, or our anti-litter campaigns, or perhaps you have visited a beach or park flying one of our award flags. We work with all Scottish local authorities and high-profile organisations, including the NHS and ScotRail. Over the past two years we’ve


recognised more than 100 sites with our National Award for Environmental Excellence. Now we’ll be working closely with Wheatley Group – and GHA – on a two-year partnership to help support tenants to make their neighbourhoods cleaner and greener. We are excited to be able to support tenants with training opportunities to help them inspect and assess the places that they care about. That will help us develop action plans for improvement. Over the past 50 years, Keep Scotland Beautiful has led the way in improving communities and in raising awareness of environmental issues. Because clean environments nurture positive mental and physical wellbeing and community pride – which is good for us all. Find out more at www. keepscotlandbeautiful.org


theKEY - www.gha.org.uk


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