Home improvement and adaptations

We work in partnership with district and borough councils and others to offer home improvement services for older people, people with disabilities or anyone who feels vulnerable at home, including families with young children.

Handyperson service

You can contact the handyperson services provided by your local home improvement agency directly. They can carry out many small jobs and basic maintenance for you. These could include:

• Odd jobs - such as replacing light bulbs, securing loose carpet or putting up shelves or flat-pack furniture;
• Adaptations - providing and fitting grab rails and external hand rails; fitting of second banister rails, or larger scale adaptations, such as building a step to improve accessibility; and
• Security - fitting window locks, security chains, doorbells and door bolts. We also supply and install key safes or replacement door locks.

Whether you own or rent your property, you may qualify for funding for some or all of the adaptations work, dependent upon an assessment.

Disabled facilities grants

We provide a technical service to support people making use of disabled facilities grants. We can only provide disabled facilities grant adaptations when the work has been assessed as meeting a need, and ‘necessary and appropriate’. The types of work our technical service helps with can include:

• drawing plans;
• submitting planning and building regulation applications;
• obtaining quotes;
• overseeing work; and
• ensuring work is completed to the required standard.

We can carry out the work or project manage the contractors you choose. 

Other help provided by home improvement agencies

Home improvement agencies work with us to provide a range of services which may include:

• adaptations in the home;
• help with accessing benefits or grants to fund work;
• energy efficiency advice; and
• free access to our 'safe traders' list of approved contractors, helping you to avoid rogue traders.