Wednesday 12 November 2008

ROWAN VILLAGE WINS NATIONAL HOUSING AWARD

This is the first part, of many articles where we plan to highlight, the good work, and positive steps, that are being taken, across Stoke on Trent.

Firstly, we would like to congratulate Rowan Village, Staffordshire Housing Association, 'extra care', Housing Complex in Meir, for winning their National Housing Award. This was awarded for the category of Meeting Housing Needs and Aspirations, at the 2008 UK Housing Awards.

The development scheme was Patnership Project Funded by the following:

Staffordshire Housing Association
Stoke on Trent City Council
Department of Health Extra Care and Housing Fund
The Housing Corporation
West Midlands Strategic Health Authority
Stoke on Trent Primary Care Trust
Renew North Staffordshire

Commissioned through the city’s Extra Care Programme Board, Rowan Village meets the changing needs of older people by providing flexible care and support on-site for residents to use as, when, and if they need it. It also has apartments specially reserved for intermediate care use, and for older carers and their learning disabled dependants. As well as 75 apartments, the complex offers a variety of communal facilities including a hairdressing salon, restaurant, conservatory, lounge and gym.

Councillor Joan Bell, Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Neighbourhood Management said "we are thrilled that the success of Rowan Village has reflected on such a national scale".

Rowan Village is the first of many new extra care facilities planned for the City.

On behalf of PitsnPots, we would like to say, well done to everyone involved with this project

14 comments:

brooneyes said...

There were 7 groups involved in this?! Plus that Common Purpose
implant Joan Bell?
Seems to me that Stoke-on-Trent city council should be the only body that needed to get involved with a building project like this, the rest is just paying out vast sums of money to groups and quangos that are nothing but a drain on resources.

Alison said...

Craig, as usual, your profound comment astounds us all.

There were 7 groups involved in this project because the Regeneration of this City needs partnership working! The City Council can't do it all on their own. There were no "vast sums of money" paid to groups and quangos.

If you look at the Partners involved, you will see that each brings individual expertise to what is a fantastic project, and a fantastic asset to this city, offering a different type of housing and improving people's lives. The people of Stoke on Trent.

As usual, your only comment is one of total negativity. The only opinion I can form from the comments you make on this site are that the BNP are a very negative, insular and unco-operative group of individuals, who don't appreciate a good thing to happen to the city when they see one!

nita said...

Brooneyes, one question, do you ever have anything positive to say?

Tony said...

Craig, Your negativity is uncomprehensible! You just come on here and spout shit and spin. I pity the sad negative world that you seem to live in. You may thing the BNP has all the answers but what you will never convince me of or anyone else on this blog, is the fact that all other parties of whatever political persuasion never ever do anything, no matter how small, well! Other parties must do somethings right? Come on Craig mate you need to recognise good practise and learn to be magnanimous about it!

brooneyes said...

Oh Christ, it's Curly, Larry and Mo!
Alison, why do we need partners, and so bloody many of them? Isn't the job of exactly this sort of thing down to our elected councillors?
Nita once again struggles for anything of any use to say, and Tony is doing his ventriloquism act again by talking through his arse! Nowhere have I said that this is a bad thing, in fact we have as a policy proposal something along similar lines, but if instead of taking a project like this and inviting all these outsiders in to do it, why not put all the work through local companies that employ local people?
With recession well and truly bedding in, local businesses need all the help they can get.
As for Joan Bell, she should be relieved of her duties for belonging to such a group as Common Purpose.
You have to stop being so easily pleased, you need to look at something like this and figure out how you can do it better next time.
This is how you save money and hone
the skills needed to run a unitary authority like this one.

nita said...

So, I once again struggle to find anything of use to say? If that's your opinion, fine.

I will do you a favour then, and me and you can end our debating right now.

brooneyes said...

Oh Nita, you're not one of those who can give it but not take it, are you?
We have lots to say in a positive way Nita, it just gets ignored, or covered up by all the sarcasm and namecalling. Take alook through some of the posts and you'll see I'm not lying.

Alison said...

Craig, your posts on this topic show you know absolutely nothing about what's needed to regenerate this city. God help us if ever you get elected as a councillor!

Of the 7 groups involved, 4 of them are LOCAL ORGANISATIONS, employing LOCAL PEOPLE. Staffordshire Housing Association, Stoke on Trent City Council, Stoke on Trent Primary Care Trust and Renew North Staffordshire, to name them.

If Stoke on Trent were to rely on its elected councillors to organise this sort of project, with no input or expertise from anyone else, how would that work? It would be a complete disaster.

This development ticks all the boxes - a new housing complex for a vulnerable client group (elderly, ill etc.), jobs for local people - both in building it and in the provision of the services within it, improving people's lives by offering them access to better medical facilities.

Have you read the list of facilities available within this complex? And your only comment is to have a pop at the portfolio holder/councillor involved, for giving a quote on the complex. Obviously, you don't like this lady councillor, but I think in the time you've been posting on this site, I've established that you don't like any councillors except the BNP ones, so no surprises there then.

There is an ageing population in Stoke on Trent, and this new housing complex is one of the ways in which the elderly of this city are being catered for. It is important. We should be proud as a city that we have actually won something for an innovative development! We should be equally proud that there are now lots of very happy elderly people living in fantastic surroundings, courtesy of those 7 partner organisations.

You can moan about it all you like and be smug. Spouting rubbish like "You have to stop being so easily pleased, you need to look at something like this and figure out how you can do it better next time" doesn't impress anyone. What it shows is that you know nothing about this project. I am sure that, having won this award, Staffordshire Housing Association isn't sitting back and being easily pleased. They are probably figuring out how they can do better next time. Because there will be a next time.

Stoke on Trent's ageing population desperately needs a variety of different options for housing, and Rowan Village is one of those.

Your moaning and bleating won't change that. In fact, I am sure it makes everyone involved in the projects more determined to prove you wrong!

brooneyes said...

Alison, I'm neither moaning nor bleating. We are supposed to be able to debate these things, but whenever it comes to you, Tony,and Nita, all we ever get is negative,
anti BNP cr*p from you. But that's OK, I'd expect nothing less from your sort. If you want a local government setup that drains massive amounts of resources in order to create quangos and other levels of bureaucracy, at the taxpayers expense of course, then that is your democratic right.
But it's my right to criticise if I see something that I consider
resource hungry for the wrong reasons.
Stoke-on-Trents senior citizens do need specialised housing, and one of the policies that we have been working on is pensioners villages, but it's not just doing these projects, it's how you do these projects!
As for the rest of your spiteful tirade, well, it probably comes from spending too much time with Tony, either that, or having too high an opinion of your political prowess because you do some blogging.

Alison said...

Craig, just for the record, sometime you spout crap, sometimes you talk some sense. It's just on this occasion my opinion is that you don't know what you are talking about.

I aren't anti BNP - I am pro Stoke. So if I think you are spouting rubbish and being negative, I will say so. If I agree with what you say (and sometimes I have on this blog), I will also say so.

All this talk of my "spiteful tirade" being because I spend too much time with Tony is also rubbish. I have my own opinions, thanks, not influenced by any one person. Don't credit Tony with my opinions and values! It might be a difficult concept for you to comprehend, but we all have different opinions and don't all have to follow like sheep. Hence - sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don't.

And what's this about my political prowess just because I do a bit of blogging? If experience of blogging is all that is required to become a political power, well, Guido Fawkes for next PM is it? Or is that Sir Findo Gask? More crap from the Craig Pond guide to being a prat.

I think it's best if we agree to differ on this one. Having seen Rowan Village from its early inception through to the residents moving in, I am truly proud that this award has been granted.

If that makes me anti-BNP, then so be it. Pesonally I think it makes me a proud Stokie, grateful that there are people working hard in our city to provide great accommodation for our deserving elderly citizens.

No need for a reply, the Craig Pond guideboook needs to be saved for another day. I am sure it will be needed again soon.

Anonymous said...

It is a little known fact that Tony and Alison are Siamese twins, separated at birth, the births themselves happening 3 weeks apart.

This must be why they have the same opinions. (According to Brooneyes they do have the same opinions, and he should know - he knows everything).

Some other startling similarities are as follows:

Both Tony and Alison have 2 eyes.
They both even have a brain.
They both have different parents (oops, forgot they were supposed to be twins...)
They both speak 2 languages - fluent English and occasional rubbish.
They both love Stoke (the place, not the footie team - although Alison loves them as well, but not enough to pay season ticket prices).
Both like drinking wine, but Alison prefers Tony to pay for it.
Tony has a wife who's name starts with the same initial as Alison.
Alison has a husband who's name doesn't start with the same initial as Tony. Here the similarity ends.

Confused? So's Craig, but that's nothing new is it?

brooneyes said...

I said the project was a good thing, I thought it had been done in the wrong way. If you consider this oversubscribed, overpriced
style of building project a sensible way to spend your hardearned tax money, that's up to you, but it doesn't detract from the fact that there is a more efficient, streamlined way of running such projects.
Onmce again Alison, the rest of your crap is just that, and I've no intention of sitting here letting you or anyone else get away with talking to me like that.
You want to disagree over the way we see some political points, fine.
Slagging me off does not fall in to that category.
I'll tell you one thing though, I'm glad you lot aren't running the city, we'd be bankrupt in a month!

nita said...

Brooneyes.

I'm glad us lot aren't running the City either, ha ha!

Alison said...

Craig, I'm glad you lot aren't running the city either!