What does WHQS stand for?
WHQS is an abbreviation of the Welsh Housing Quality Standards. You can visit the Welsh Government website here to get an overview of what WHQS means for housing associations and local authorities.
What does WHQS mean for Beacon residents?
Beacon has a responsibility to ensure that the homes we provide are energy efficient, safe and secure. To ensure every home meets a similar standard, all social landlords work towards a Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS).
It was first introduced in 2002 but updated in 2023 to reflect changes in the way people live, work and feel about their homes. The revised standard aims to continue to improve the quality of people’s homes and sets new ambitious targets to address decarbonisation, support efforts to reach net zero and improve water efficiency.
At its heart, WHQS is a resident focused standard, designed to upgrade social homes in a way that contributes to positive health, education and wellbeing outcomes. The investment required also provides a significant opportunity to generate and retain prosperity for local communities, through the creation of jobs, training and apprenticeships in the supply chain
Meeting the standards
The Standards outline what social landlords are expected to comply with. It is expected that all homes should be of high quality, be healthy to live in and meet community, family and individual needs of residents. Social landlords are actively encouraged to engage with their residents to shape their programme of works and to take account of feedback from other residents’ lived experience of retrofits, in order to improve how homes can be efficiently and effectively maintained, upgraded and decarbonised in future.
The Standard sets the requirements that all social housing is updated and kept in good condition so social residents have the opportunity to live in a home that must:
- Be in good condition.
- Be safe and secure.
- Be energy efficient and environmentally friendly.
- Have modern kitchen and utility areas.
- Have up-to-date bathrooms.
- Be comfortable and suitable for the occupants.
- Ideally, have a garden.
- Ideally, have pleasant outdoor spaces.
Where can residents get more information?
You can keep up to date by visiting the Welsh Government website by using the link below.
You can read the Welsh Housing Quality Standard here or view the easy read version here.
Have any questions? You can check out our frequently asked questions document here.