Our Place - Making a difference in Smallbridge

The Junior Warden group took to the streets to promote the dog fouling campaign named ‘PUPPIES’

As the new mutual Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) begins to take shape a new initiative called ‘Our Place’ is bringing together employees and residents working to address the issues that are important in our neighbourhoods.

RBH Head of Strategy and Regeneration, Clare Tostevin, said: “Our Place is one of the things we are doing differently now as we look to our future as a unique housing mutual.”

As part of the initiative, Smallbridge paid witness to a busy fortnight of tackling some recurring issues in response to the Our Place Action Plan.

Meeting on Stevenson Square, volunteers consisting of tenants, residents and employees joined forces to ‘make a difference’ and completed litter-picks and minor environmental improvements whilst skips were provided for those who wanted to dispose of any bulky rubbish – by the end of the fortnight 10 tonnes of rubbish was collected!

As part of Our Place, a new Junior Warden group has been established in the area – and they took to the streets to actively promote the well received dog fouling campaign which they aptly named ‘PUPPIES’ - short for ‘Pick Up Poo Please In Environmental Sacks’ - to raise public awareness and help tackle the problem.

Clare added: “We have asked all our employees to give two days a year to support community initiatives. Everyone who took part in the Smallbridge activities said they had enjoyed doing something different to their day to day job and tenants can see that we really are starting to do things differently.”

RBH employee volunteer, Danny Farnell, said: “My experience volunteering was really enjoyable. It just goes to show the organisation is heading in the right direction to make a real difference to the local communities, in this instance one soggy mattress at a time!”