You said, we did
Ways to contact us
At our June tenants panel our panel suggested that residents would benefit from information about how to get in touch with us as well as other teams at Darlington Borough Council.
With this in mind, August's Housing Connect features a section dedicated to contacting us in various ways.
You can find more information in our Housing Connect August 2023 Edition[pdf document]
As the pandemic took effect the council became aware of the struggles of some tenants. The main cause was a struggle with online learning due to lack of equipment.
In June last year the Housing Team used the community fund to provide 75 laptops. This was across 7 locations to help families with schooling needs.
Residents of Park Place reported an increase in traffic in the resident's zone. They felt this was due to faded lines in the private parking spaces.
In November 2021 the housing officer worked with the residents for a resolution. The parking area was restored with the help of the civil engineering department. Bringing the parking area back to its former glory with new lines in place.
In February 2022 residents had been working without an extractor unit. This was causing difficulty when cooking, and was reported to us. Our housing officer worked with the asset management team to fit an extractor unit.
On completion of the job the tenants were grateful, sending a compliment to all those involved.
We were made aware of an increase in fly tipping in March 2022. This affected the empty flower beds in Edmund Street.
To combat this our Housing Officer arranged for Street Scene to plant more flowers in the beds. This discouraged fly tippers and make the area more appealing for local residents.
With the focus moving to online in the last year we asked our Tenants Panel to join us for online engagement. One of our panel was keen to be involved in these sessions but did not have the equipment to be able to do it.
To help assist the engagement team bought the tenants panel member a new tablet. This meant that she could be involved in engagement events as well as assisting her in day to day tasks.
We also listened to our tenants panel when they asked for comprehensive training. This was provided to complement their panel duties.
Throughout the year the panel have been invited to the North East Tenants Voice. Tenants throughout the North East meet to discuss regional topics.
We also invited one of our panel members to a mystery shopping workshop in March 2022. This was in preparation for mystery shopping resumption in 2022.