Tenants and landlords shared ideas, insight and feedback during an annual conference.
Bolsover District Council worked in partnership with Chesterfield Borough Council and Rykneld Homes to host a Joint Tenant Conference, at The Arkwright Centre, in Arkwright Town.
Thirteen of Bolsover District Council’s involved tenants took part in the all-day conference, which has been held annually over the past three years and also featured involvement from the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS).
Each table featured a mix of tenants and landlords from all three organisations, providing an opportunity to share and compare ideas and best practice.
The format was altered from previous year’s events and involved tenants getting more hands-on and taking part in workshops.
An introductory exercise looked at tenant satisfaction, followed by a workshop which looked at how visible tenants thought their landlord was.
The second workshop encouraged tenants to design their own ‘perfect housing officer’ and the third was based on ‘a day in their shoes’ brief, with tenants encouraged to plan an imaginary Housing Officer’s workload.
The final workshop saw tenants using a ‘traffic-light’ system of improvements they’d like to see, with green representing things the landlords could easily and quickly implement, amber representing things that could be acted on in the future and red representing things that will take considerable work.
‘Green’ requirements included greater communication of the range of services offered and ‘amber’ needs included communal inspections and better general communication.
Jane Calladine, Bolsover District Council’s Tenant Engagement Officer, said: “The theme of the conference was ‘visibility’ and making sure tenants know who to contact for their housing needs and what communication channels are available to them.
“The conference was a fantastic way to learn from each other and find out whether there were things we could do differently. There was a real buzz about the day.
“TPAS has compiled a report and we will go away and work on the findings.”
In a feedback survey, 24 tenants responded, with 54 percent rating the event as excellent, 33 percent rating it very good and 13 percent rating it as good.
One resident commented: “I think the event was worthwhile and made people think about the role of their housing officer.”
Another wrote: “It was good to get other thoughts and ideas.”
A third said: “There was a good mix of subjects and a lot of information from other groups.”
A fourth commented: “The workshops were an excellent opportunity to put across ideas and issues with our landlords. It gave insights into the work they do and challenges they face.”
Each landlord also donated raffle prizes of Love2Shop vouchers with two Bolsover District Council tenants winning prizes.
Find out how to contact your housing officer at https://www.bolsover.gov.uk/services/h/housing