London & Quadrant Housing Trust L&Q's Response to Covid-19 (4344H)

TIDM44EB

RNS Number : 4344H

London & Quadrant Housing Trust

24 March 2020

London & Quadrant Housing Trust Response to Covid-19

The health and safety and wellbeing of our customers, employees and subcontractors are L&Q's top priority. With the national response to the outbreak changing daily, we are doing all we can to support them during this unprecedented crisis; to help prevent the spread of the virus and to ensure that they stay safe and are following the latest Government and Public Health guidance.

We have found that social distancing on construction sites is extremely difficult to achieve. Added to this in London, our construction workers are heavy users of the public transport network. L&Q wants to be part of the effort to maintain the safety of our transport network for critical key workers, and we also want to be part of the national campaign to halt the spread of the virus. Therefore, in the interest of customer and employee safety, we have today taken the difficult decision to close down all of our construction sites. This decision will be reviewed in three weeks, and in the meantime we'll be making all our sites safe and secure as quickly as possible.

We do not underestimate the impact on people's jobs and incomes, and this decision has been taken after very careful consideration. We will do everything we can to support people through this period.

We are also urgently discussing the implications of this decision with the government, Mayor of London and other key stakeholders. While this unprecedented situation calls for tough short-term adjustments, our longer term commitment to working with partners and building the homes people need remains undiminished.

L&Q continues to work hard to make sure we are well prepared to deal with the latest developments. We have established a crisis response team and developed a pandemic plan to help us deal with the health and business threats caused by coronavirus. The aim of this plan is to keep residents, colleagues and stakeholders informed, reassured and safe.

While prioritising safety and following the latest official government advice, we want to ensure that our response is proportionate and minimises disruption. We are constantly reviewing how service delivery will be adapted if our staffing levels or resident health are severely impacted and are putting measures in place to ensure that emergency, business critical and health and safety related functions are maintained.

We are also doing everything in our power to support our people and the most vulnerable during these difficult times. Actions to date include:

-- Established a home-working approach for our customer contact centre to ensure that customers can always get a response from us.

-- Enacted tried and tested Direct Maintenance plans. This involves prioritising requests so that emergency demand remains well-serviced.

-- Introduced screening for repairs, and personal protective equipment for our operatives to reduce the risk of coronavirus spreading during repairs visits.

-- Developed procedures to ensure that emergency repairs can be carried out, even if there is an infected person in the property.

-- Maintained caretaking and estate services to ensure health and safety compliance on our estates.

-- Completed coronavirus risk assessments at all of our care and support schemes, and introduced increased infection control measures including additional cleaning and hand washing requirements.

-- We will not take legal action for arrears at this time, but we are reminding people that they should continue to pay their rent as normal because it helps to fund essential frontline services.

-- We have instructed our specialist income teams to support customers who may be struggling to pay their rent by putting personal payment plans in place if needed, and providing enhanced support for those affected by coronavirus. We are also putting in place arrangements to help people access the emergency support that has been put in place by the government.

-- Established robust finance procedures to ensure that contractors and suppliers continue to receive payment for goods and services.

Whilst it is too early to speculate about the full extent of the ongoing crisis on L&Q's future financial performance, we have planned for an inevitable material impact on trading performance and cash flows. We continue to have a well capitalised balance sheet and a strong liquidity position.

In order to conserve cash and increase our flexibility, we are taking measures to tightly manage our working capital and capital expenditure and have taken the decision to stop all discretionary spend and delay capital expenditure plans. However, we are likely to face weeks or months of uncertainty, including periods of inactivity and disruption to income streams and therefore our ability to generate cash.

Furthermore, whilst every effort is being made, on-going disruption could have the ability to impact our financial reporting timetable, including the publication of quarterly trading statements and the publication of our audited financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2020.

For further information, please contact:

 
 James Howell, Head of External Affairs    0300 456 9998 
 Cathryn Rowley, Assistant Director, 
  Communications                           0300 456 9998

www.lqgroup.org.uk

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