B&Q Responds!

B&Q Responds!

9:49 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago 24

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I sent an email to Veronique Laury, head of the financially beleaguered B&Q telling her we would not use them for the repair and renovation of our property portfolio whilst they supported Shelter

Here is her reply sent by her Customer care manager make of it what you will, but I think they need more opaque paint for whitewashing!

Dear Mr,

Thank you for your recent email to Veronique Laury and Graham Bell and for sharing your concerns about our partnership with Shelter, which we have raised with them.

At B&Q and Kingfisher, we believe everyone should have a home that they can feel good about and recognise that this is not the case for many people. As a business, we are supporting charities which support this ambition and focus on those most in need of our help. As the leading UK wide charity tackling poor housing and homelessness, we believe that Shelter is the right national organisation for us to work with.

Although Shelter doesn’t provide housing directly, their expert advice can stop a family becoming homeless in the first place – and is also vital in helping people get back on their feet, if the worst happens and they lose their home. Shelter helps millions of people through their expert advice and support.

From our discussions with them, we know that Shelter recognises that the vast majority of landlords are good landlords. They actively work with landlords and the professional landlord bodies to come up with solutions which work for landlords and tenants – for example, giving advice to tenants on how to look after a property so they get their deposits back or in campaigning to unfreeze the local housing allowance.

Our support of Shelter funds a team of DIY Skills Advisers. By offering guidance on basic DIY skills, they support families to settle into a new property after a period of homelessness and help those at risk of homelessness to stay in their current home. So far, they have supported over 500 families to be safer and secure in their homes. We regularly review the impact our partnership is having and are happy with how Shelter is using the funds that we donate

Thank you again for sharing your concerns. We hope you will reconsider your decision not to shop in B&Q anymore. Thank you for your custom so far.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Walker, B&Q Executive Customer Care Manager

 

Roger


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Comments

Paul Kaye

11:02 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

BQ are a crap company I know I worked there 14 years.
Bully boys ,intimidation,threats I suffered abuse.
They rip people off with their fitting charges and give the worse service.
I retired and wasted 14 years of my life !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CrocadileBoy

11:06 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Add me to the list who won’t be shopping either at B&Q or Screwfix. Instead I will try to use Wickes and Toolstation more often, which most of the time are cheaper anyway!

Paul Shears

11:10 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Paul Kaye at 10/12/2018 - 11:02
My heart goes out to you. Most of us are born into serving time for a crime that we did not commit. It's called work. For the most part it adds only a destructive burden to society.

Ros poldermans

11:15 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

This is my reply from B&Q
Thank you for your recent email to Veronique Laury and for sharing your concerns about our partnership with Shelter, which we have raised with them.

At Kingfisher we believe everyone should have a home that they can feel good about and recognise that this is not the case for many people. As a business, we are supporting charities which support this ambition and focus on those most in need of our help. As the leading UK wide charity tackling poor housing and homelessness, we believe that Shelter is the right national organisation for us to work with.

Although Shelter doesn’t provide housing directly, their expert advice can stop a family becoming homeless in the first place - and is also vital in helping people get back on their feet, if the worst happens and they lose their home. Shelter helps millions of people through their expert advice and support.

Regarding their relationships with landlords, we know that Shelter recognises that the vast majority of landlords are good landlords. They actively work with landlords and the professional landlord bodies to come up with solutions which work for landlords and tenants, for example giving advice to tenants on how to look after a property so they get their deposits back, or in campaigning to unfreeze the local housing allowance, supported by both the Residential Landlords Association and the National Landlords Association.

Our partnership with Shelter funds a team of DIY Skills Advisers. By offering guidance on basic DIY skills, they support families to settle into a new property after a period of homelessness and help those at risk of homelessness to stay in their current home. So far, they have supported over 500 families to be safer and secure in their homes. Our funding also supports Shelter’s frontline services. We regularly review the impact our partnership is having and are happy with how Shelter is using the funds that we donate.

On reading our response, we hope you will reconsider your decision not to shop in B&Q. Thank you for your custom so far.

Yours sincerely,

Guy Bradley

11:18 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Hi, well done for bringing this to light recently. I had stopped shopping at B&Q as soon as I heard they had 'adopted' Shelter...lost track of how long ago but have since used Wickes primarily and a variety of smaller builders merchants/online and it has been fine - in fact am sure I will have saved money etc and am not supporting Shelter (who I used to be behind but they have become toxic and a lobbying organisation with a blanket anti-private-landlord agenda á la The Guardian and, sadly, the Conservative Party

TheMaluka

11:25 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

"Our partnership with Shelter funds a team of DIY Skills Advisers. By offering guidance on basic DIY skills, they support families to settle into a new property after a period of homelessness and help those at risk of homelessness to stay in their current home. "

Was it these f*****s who taught my tenant how to smash a toilet basin with a club hammer?

paul robinson

11:57 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Interesting but unless B&Q response.

Tbf why use b&q in the 1st place, ok decent price on building and plaster materials but wickes or a builders merchants (Selco if prefer more retail/set prices) have equal or better pricing.

Anything else, Toolstation All day long, or eBay.

Occasionally use the trade point at b&q when can’t get easily from elsewhere, using the trade entrance and check out allows to avoid all the DIY morons! 🙂

Now they have stopped the set tradepoint pricing, guess no different to a builders merchants, although at least you can haggle at the merchants on expensive items.

Annie Landlord

11:58 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Seems an entirely professional and polite response. At the end of the day, what else could they say?

paul robinson

11:59 AM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by David Price at 10/12/2018 - 11:25
Tenant Probably read and misunderstood one then b&q DIY advice leaflets...or maybe that’s wickes. 😁

Freda Blogs

12:01 PM, 10th December 2018, About 5 years ago

Standard reply to everyone by the looks of it.
"By offering guidance on basic DIY skills, they support families to settle into a new property after a period of homelessness and help those at risk of homelessness to stay in their current home"
How exactly? If it's a rented property, the rights to alter/decorate a property are usually limited by the terms of the AST (rightly so in my view as its the Landlord's asset), and if its an owner occupied property they can do what they like, skill or no skill - but should prioritise paying the mortgage over doing DIY if money is tight....

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