Erith Park will remain fully accessible during the works and you will continue to be able to enter and leave your building as normal.

We want to be open with you and let you know that it is likely we will affect parking around your building when we are working on it or preparing to work on it. We will do our utmost to keep any impact on parking to a minimum, but please be aware that a small number of parking bays may be inaccessible at times so that we can erect scaffolding or get a MEWP in place.

Where possible, we’ll let you know in advance if any car parking bays allocated to your building will be inaccessible and when. We know that this will cause inconvenience and we apologise in advance if you are affected by this.

To ease the situation, parking enforcement will be suspended for some zones while we work on certain buildings. We will let you know in advance if this is the case outside your building. We will also provide seven days’ notice when parking enforcement is re-introduced.

We politely ask that you continue to park considerately at Erith Park and avoid blocking in any other vehicles, access to the bin stores, and the entrance / exit to the car parking areas.

Works will take place Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays) from 8am to 5pm. The team will only work Saturdays in exceptional circumstances. If we do work Saturdays, it would be from 8am to 1pm.

We may need access to your balcony via the inside of your home to complete the works, and we might need you to clear your balcony for this. If you have outdoor lights or any other electrical systems on your balcony, we may need to isolate these at some point during the works. We will test and reinstate the electrics as soon as we are able to do so.

We will get in touch with you to arrange access when the time comes for us to start work on your building. We will always try and arrange access for a date and time that is convenient for you and we will help to find a solution if you need assistance to move items from your balcony.

We will take photographs of the outside of the building and your balcony before the works take place, so that we can make sure the area is left how we found it.

We will be doing our best to keep any noise to a minimum and we will monitor this three times a week using a hand-held device to make sure any noise is kept within appropriate limits.

The works will involve some drilling, but this will be localised and shouldn’t be for prolonged periods of time. If you have any issues with this, for example, if you are a shift worker or you have young children at home, we urge you to speak to your Resident Liaison Officer, Paris Gardner, so we can try and find a solution.

We will carefully manage any waste, making sure it is stored in a specific area and is regularly collected and taken away from Erith Park. Materials will be recycled where possible, in line with Orbit’s and Wates’ shared commitment to managing resources, materials and products responsibly.

In the unlikely event that you do see any construction rubbish that has been left at Erith Park, especially near any exposed areas of wall, please contact us and we’ll arrange for it to be removed. This is in line with the government’s fire safety advice.

We will be keeping any large vehicles on site to a minimum and the movements of all contractor vehicles will be managed by an onsite logistics team.

The project team will work from the temporary project office which will be in place on vacant land at Lesney Farm allotments, at the top of Dell View Road. As such, their vehicles will be parked here and not on any public roads at Erith Park.

Health and safety is a top priority for both Orbit and Wates and the teams are combining their expertise at Erith Park to complete the works safely.

In recognition of its ongoing commitment to health and safety excellence, Orbit was recently awarded a gold health and safety award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) for the fifth consecutive year.

Wates also shares an excellent safety record and has an industry-leading zero-harm health and safety strategy aimed at keeping its employees, sub-contractors and members of the public safe and protected from harm.

While the works to your building are taking place, the ‘stay put’ evacuation plan remains in place and we strongly recommend that you don’t smoke or use naked flame(s) on your balcony. This advice is in line with the government’s latest fire safety regulations. If you do choose to smoke, please dispose of your leftover cigarettes in a safe manner and ensure they are fully extinguished.

EWS1 certificates will be available two weeks after all the works to your building are complete and they have been inspected and signed off by our partners, Hunters (Please see the ‘Who’s Who’ section below for more information on Hunters).

It is important to note that EWS1 certificates won’t be provided direct to you but will be available to download from buildingsafetyportal.co.uk. If you have any difficulties downloading or printing off your EWS1 certificate when it becomes available, please let us know and we will do what we can to help.

In the meantime, with no valid EWS1 currently available for your building, we understand the difficulties you may be facing if you want to remortgage, sell your home, or buy more shares in your home (‘staircasing’).

In December 2022, the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) updated its guidance for valuers regarding external wall systems where there is no valid EWS1. The guidance offers a way for valuations to take place where:

1. Remedial work to the external cladding system has been identified
2. It is clear how this will be funded (and costs will not be passed onto residents)
3. Lenders have indicated their willingness to lend.

If you wish to remortgage, sell your home, or buy more shares in your home at Erith Park, we suggest that the information we have previously provided to support points 1 and 2 is presented as part of your discussions with lenders, along with the guidance on the RICS website.

The emergency plan for your building remains as follows:

• Leave your home if there’s a fire inside it.
• If the fire is elsewhere, stay put.

If you leave your home due to a fire, please be sure to close the doors behind you to limit the spread of fire and smoke. You should not use the lift and should make your way to the stairs, closing communal doors as you go – again this will help limit the spread of fire and smoke. Once you’re in the stairwell you’re in a protected escape route designed to withstand fire and allow firefighters to access the building.

Make your way safely to ground floor level and leave the building, and then stay outside until you are advised it is safe to return.

In the unlikely event of an emergency, your local fire crew is the Bexley Borough of the London Fire Brigade, with crews based at Bexley, Erith and Sidcup fire stations.

If you have any mobility requirements that would make evacuating your home and building difficult, please let us know by emailing us at: SpecialProjectsTeam@orbit.org.uk.

You may not be able to fully open some of the windows in your home when there’s scaffolding up around your building. You’ll be able to open your windows enough to ventilate your home, but it’s important to note that windows should not be considered a possible fire escape route from your home, unless you live on the ground floor.

While works are taking place to your building, we strongly recommend that you don’t smoke or use naked flame(s) on your balcony. This advice is in line with the government’s latest fire safety regulations. If you do choose to smoke, please dispose of your leftover cigarettes in a safe manner and ensure they are fully extinguished. For more information on how to stay safe in your home, please go to our home safety pages.

Your Resident Liaison Officer, Paris Gardner, is your first point of contact for any questions or concerns about the works. You can email Paris at Paris.Gardner@wates.co.uk or you can call her on 07754 049321. Paris will aim to respond to all queries within three working days.

Alternatively, you can email the Orbit team at SpecialProjectsTeam@orbit.org.uk.