There are 37 high-rise blocks providing over 1,900 flats in the north of the Borough.
While many of the services provided by Solihull Community Housing, and the Estate services team specifically, apply to tenants in all building types, there are additional needs and challenges present by high-rise living.
Building Safety
One of the highest priorities for SCH is to ensure residents live in properties that are safe. This is achieved through a range of services including routine inspections on all aspects of a property. Flats in multi-storey buildings are designed to stop fire and smoke spreading for as long as possible and we carry out fire risk assessments to our high-rise buildings annually.
Estates Services check the general condition and specifically the measures in place to control the impact if a fire were to break out within a building. An inspection is carried out weekly in the common parts of high-rise buildings to ensure that the fire control measures are in place.
Contact us immediately if you see anything that is a fire risk such as damage to front doors, front door frames and letterboxes. We carry out repairs to front doors as quickly as possible because doors in high rises are designed to prevent fire and smoke from spreading to other flats and areas of the building for 30 minutes.
You must not keep paraffin, petrol or bottled gases, like those used in portable room heaters, in your flat or shared areas.
Please do not smoke in communal areas. By law you are not allowed to smoke in shared areas of the building like hallways, stairs, corridors and landings. This applies to you and your visitors.
Each high-rise building has its own building safety plan which can be accessed here.
We have a ‘Stay Put’ policy in place in our low and high-rise buildings.
If an emergency situation occurs, it is essential that you understand the procedure and what to do to stay safe. The policy outlines what you should do if there is a fire in your flat, or a neighbour’s flat.
Please familiarise yourself with the policy by following this link:
In the event of a fire – Solihull Community Housing
More information is available by following these links:
A key part of fire safety is to ensure that the means of evacuating from a building is maintained. Estate Services remove items that are in communal areas of both high and low-rise buildings where they are considered to be a potential risk to the safe evacuation of a building. In high-rise buildings there is a clear spaces policy regarding free-standing items in communal areas and consideration is being given to what is acceptable in low-rise buildings. All residents must be compliant with our clear spaces policy, making sure that landings, stairwells, and communal areas are kept clear at all times. This approach means residents can be safely evacuated in the event of a fire, and the Fire Service can access all areas of the building with ease.
Please do not put any rubbish, including black bags and bulky items, on communal landings, stairwells, in chute rooms or outside the block. Leaving rubbish in communal areas creates a serious fire risk and we need everyone’s help to prevent this from happening.
Usually during the first six weeks of you moving into a high-rise building a member of the Estates team will visit you to see how you are settling in and provide advice about the services available. This will include general advice on how to share the communal space and where to get help if needed. Estate Assistants are regular visitors to high-rise blocks throughout the week and can often be the first point of contact for a resident to get support from Solihull Community Housing.
The frequency of cleaning is Monday to Friday. This will involve cleaning three floors plus the ground floor every day as well as sweeping the stairs.
There is a separate requirement to unblock the bin chutes and clean up biohazards (body fluids, human tissue, and blood) and an expectation this is done within one hour of notification.
SCH carry out a quality inspection every month which is part of the formal contract management process. However, issues relating to the cleaning will be responded to as they arise.
The cleaning company check the blocks on a Saturday, Sunday & bank holidays to make sure communal areas are free from bags / bulk items. Lifts, foyers and entrances are cleaned per the weekday specification.
External cleaning of the communal windows of high-rise buildings is undertaken annually. This will generally be scheduled during the Spring and Summer months.
The responsibility for the collection and maintenance of the recycling bins lies with Solihull Council who manage this alongside the refuse collection service.
High-rise buildings all have notice boards usually on the ground floor adjacent to the lifts. This contains important information about services being provided to the buildings such as cleaning as well as having important safety information relating to the building and its residents.
We are unlikely to give permission for satellite dishes to be installed on high rises.
If you install a dish without our permission, we may remove it and charge you the cost of this.
All of our blocks have a digital aerial, and you should have a digital socket in your flat, which allows you to receive a wide range of channels without a satellite dish. If you don’t have a digital socket, please let us know.
Some pay TV companies offer TV packages which allow you to record two channels at the same time. But some of these companies rely on customers having a dual feed digital system. The system in our high-rise blocks is single feed. Before you sign a contract with any pay TV company, please check that the features you want will work with a single-feed digital system.
If you are able to have an entertainment box such as Sky or Virgin Media, you need to let us know. You need to arrange for a member of our staff to be with you when your provider begins the installation.
To complete the installation your provider will need to have access to service cupboard which we can provide. We need at least 48 hours’ notice in order to book this service.