Hello, welcome to Tenant Times and my first introduction in this newsletter! 

Tenant engagement is all about open communication between you and the Council. Whether it’s through surveys, meetings, or digital platforms, tenant engagement ensures your voice is heard and helps shape the services and decisions that affect your home and community. Here at Newark and Sherwood District Council, we’re committed to working in partnership with you to create a better living environment for everyone.

In this newsletter, you'll find a number of different ways you can feedback on the service we provide, whether it’s joining us on Estate Walkabouts, taking part in your nearest Community Link Group or providing us with your feedback, it all helps us shape the service offer you receive. Within this edition of Tenant Times you will find out more about what’s happening and how to get involved, so please ensure you have a read through. 

All the best, 

Councillor Lee Brazier, Portfolio Holder for Housing. 

We have given our Community Chest fund a fresh new look and feel, relaunching the scheme as the Grant for Local Opportunities and Wellbeing (GLOW). GLOW provides community groups with the opportunity to apply for funding of up to £1,000 to support local projects.

The scheme, which has been running for more than four years, is providing valuable funding to communities across the district with the aim to improve the lives of our District Council tenants.

The grants can be used to support a range of projects that will specifically improve amenities in or around social housing areas.

Find out more and apply here: www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/GLOW

Following feedback from our tenants, we have launched our new Community Link Groups to give tenants and leaseholders the opportunity to further shape their local community.

Taking place at locations across the district, the groups provide an essential forum for tenants and leaseholders to raise issues and ideas that are important to them. These are specific to our local community with officers and Councillors from the District Council and partner organisations such as Nottinghamshire Police in attendance. 

Light refreshments will be available and there is no need to book your place at these meetings; just turn up on the day. 

Everyone deserves a home that is safe, secure, and well maintained. If you live in social housing, your landlord is responsible for fixing issues, including damp and mould, leaks, broken locks or changes you need to your home if you’re disabled. They can also help with nuisance, like noisy neighbours.

Know the steps to get an issue fixed.

Step 1. Report it to your landlord. Then, if it is not fixed...

Step 2. Complain through your landlord’s complaint process, and if you’re not happy with the final response from your landlord...

Step 3. Escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman (You can call them at any time for advice, you don't have to have been through the complaints process)

Advice about contacting the Housing Ombudsman

The Housing Ombudsman is impartial, will investigate fairly and can order your landlord to take action. Once the Housing Ombudsman has ruled against a landlord, they must show they are taking action within 6-8 weeks. 

We take the safety of tenants very seriously and following a number of tragedies in social housing across the country, the Government has intensified the scrutiny on social landlords. In February 2025, the Government confirmed that regulations implementing Awaab's Law will be phased in from October 2025, which will introduce strict response times for social landlords including us, to respond to potential hazards in your home.

To prepare for the new guidance, we have already recruited a dedicated Damp and Mould Surveyor and are looking at how our services need to adapt to fully comply with Awaab’s Law.

It's our responsibility to meet these new requirements when they are introduced and if we fail to do so, tenants will be able to hold us to account.

We use a digital system to manage your tenancy, rent account, repairs and servicing, letting homes as well as any communications you have with us around housing services.  We’re always looking at providing the best value for money and finding ways to make improvements to the way we work. 

It’s time to move to a more modern system - which ensures we can use information to better shape services to meet your needs, enabling more online services for those who prefer and freeing up time for queries that need to be face-to-face.  After a lot of hard work, we are preparing to move to a new system in May 2025.

When our new system is live, you will have a service that:

• is user friendly with improved self-service functionality giving you more control
• has improved security for your personal information
• can work well on various devices
• makes it simpler and quicker for you to submit repairs, contact us and more.

It will take a few weeks to ensure our staff are trained and during this time there will be some changes to how we deliver services to you.

We'll be switching off our online repairs service for a few weeks starting from week commencing Monday 31 March. If you do need to raise a repair, please call 01636 650 000.

Our MyAccount service will also be offline from week commencing Monday 21 April. We’ll be contacting users of the service to make them aware of the changes taking place. It will be replaced with a brand-new improved tenant portal.

We will be maintaining essential services throughout this time and aim to keep disruption to a minimum.

The Housing Ombudsman has launched a consultation on their Business Plan for 2025-26 and a 5-year Corporate Strategy setting out how they will meet their vision of healthier homes, fairer services and trusting relationships.

The consultation is seeking views from residents, landlords and anyone working or involved in the social housing sector.

It is an opportunity to get involved and help shape the work of their service to create a thriving housing sector for all.

The plan also outlines the activities for the next 12 months in response to yet another record increase in complaints referred to the service last year.

In February 2025, the Council approved a rent increase of 2.7% that is payable from April 2025.  This increase is in accordance with Government guidance and is necessary to ensure we have the finances to keep your homes safe and decent and deliver our extensive housing services, whilst being able to plan for future investment in new kitchens, bathrooms, roofs, windows and developing new homes.

You should have already received your rent notice which gives details of how your rent will change. For those receiving Housing Benefits or Universal Credit, additional support is available.

What do you need to do?

If you already pay by Direct Debit, we will make the changes and write to you nearer the time, confirming the new amount again, before your April payment is taken.

If you pay your rent directly yourself, please make sure you pay the new amount from 7 April 2025.

If your rent is paid by Housing Benefit, we will pass on your rent details to the Council’s Housing Benefit service who, on receipt of this information, will then write to you with your new Housing Benefit award amount. You should receive confirmation of your Housing Benefit award from 17 March 2025 onwards.

If your rent is paid by Universal Credit keep the rent notice letter we sent to you in the last few weeks safe as you will need it in April. Wait until you are sent a to-do in April from Universal Credit called ‘Confirm your housing costs’ and use the information in the notice letter to complete the to-do before the due date. Please only use the ‘Confirm housing costs’ to-do to report these changes

Need extra support?

If you want to discuss how these adjustments will affect you, or are struggling with your finances, please contact us as we are here to help. We have advisors ready to support with your personal circumstances, and we also work with partner agencies that can provide specialised assistance.

To discuss how these changes may affect you, please contact us

Share your good news with us for Tenant Times! We know our tenants do amazing things in our neighbourhoods and we want to hear from you! Whether you’ve started a new community group, joined a chatty cafe, achieved something incredible, or even done a bit of gardening you’re proud of, send them to us and it could feature in the next Tenant Times!

Simply send your story to information@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk along with a picture and a short explanation of what you’ve accomplished. We look forward to seeing all the articles!

We are committed to transparency and keeping our tenants informed on how we are performing. Our monthly performance reports and other relevant documents are available on our website so you can find out how well we're delivering our services.

These reports provide an overview of our achievements, areas for improvement, and future plans. We publish reports on our website and you can review them to stay updated on how we are meeting our goals and delivering on our promises to you.

Tenants are encouraged to read our Tenant Annual Report for 2023/2024. We will be publishing the Tenant Annual Report for 2024/2025 later this year.

We are currently looking for tenants interested in taking on the following roles to help us make sure your views are involved in the decisions we take for where you live:

Grounds Maintenance Champion – Walk around your neighbourhood making sure we have cut the grass, trimmed hedges, and remove fly tipping as we say we do.

NSDC Sounding Board Member – We want to hear your opinions before we make changes to services. You can have your say - online, in person, or by post, committing as much time as you want.

Communal Cleaning Inspector – Do monthly checks of communal areas or community centres near you and submit a score on how our cleaning contractors have done.

Empty Homes Inspector – Inspecting properties available to let and ensure they meet the lettable standard.

Estate Walkabouts - These are a great way for you to help us keep our communities clean, tidy and problem free. You will meet other tenants, staff members and agencies involved in maintaining good standards in our neighbourhoods. 

We aim to resolve any issues identified within four weeks, which could involve us working with tenants to tidy gardens or replacing missing street signs.

Most walkabouts start at 10am. You can find the full list of walkabouts on our website.

If you would like any more information on getting involved, get in touch with the Tenant Engagement team at getinvolved@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk

Our team of Tenancy Officers are there to support you with help and guidance. To find your local tenancy officer visit www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/mytenancyofficer

Meet one of our Officers: David

Hi, I am the Tenancy Officer for Bilsthorpe, Farnsfield, Eakring, Caunton and Norwell. I have worked for the Council for seven years, starting out taking calls on the lifeline care system, a job I enjoyed very much. I have been a Tenancy Officer for nearly four years, and I love the variety that the job offers and helping out our tenants.  I am a volunteer First Aider for Newark Community First Aid and cover many events all over the district. If you need to speak with me, then don’t hesitate to contact me on 01636 650 000. Just ask for Tenancy Officer David!

We know that medical concerns can happen any time of day, so here is some information about out of hours care in case you need it.

The quickest way to receive medical help, including an out of hours GP appointment, is via NHS111 online.

You can call 111 or visit https://111.nhs.uk/ to receive advice or be navigated to the most appropriate service by a trained operator. The operator will be able to book appointments and timeslots at the most appropriate health service for your needs.

Depending on what you need, you might be advised to look after yourself at home or offered one of these options:

• See a pharmacist for help with a minor illness
• Contact your own GP surgery
• Get urgent specialist support, for dental or mental health problems
• Book a callback from a nurse
• See an evening and weekend GP (out-of-hours GP)
• Go to an Urgent Treatment Centre (Newark UTC opens at 8am - 10pm with last patient admitted at 9.30pm)
• Call 999 or go to A&E in an emergency

Are we doing a good job or falling below your expectations? Please let us know, as with your feedback, we can make changes and improve our services. You can provide feedback via email, telephone or via an online form. Find out more at www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/tenantfeedback

Please let us know if you have a specific complaint. You can do this online at: www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/customerfeedback/

• Make a complaint to us at Newark and Sherwood District Council
• Make a complaint through the Housing Ombudsman

Let us know what you think about the information in this e-newsletter and what you would like to see in future editions by emailing getinvolved@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk.