Hello! Want to know how you can get involved and make a difference? The Tenant Times is your go-to! Created with our awesome Tenant Engagement team, we're here to help you share your voice.

Meet our Tenant Engagement team!

Robyn Henry (left)

Robyn is our organisational whiz, keeping action plans, agendas, and topics on point. Robyn brings great experience from the private rented sector.

Emily Price (centre)

Emily, who joined in 2023, excelled in her apprenticeship with a distinction last year. She helps manage community centre bookings and handling complaints and is about to start a project management course.

Jane Diver (right)

Jane, our budget guru, has a background in supported housing and manufacturing. She stays current with developments within tenant engagement and ensures the GLOW fund is awarded fairly and efficiently.

Together, we make sure your voice is heard in the housing services the Council provide.

What is Tenant Engagement? It’s all about creating a positive and collaborative relationship between tenants and the Council. It means that tenants have a voice in decisions that affect their homes and neighbourhoods. This can include participating in meetings, suggesting new ideas, reviewing the performance of existing services, giving feedback, and working together on projects to improve lives. Essentially, it's about ensuring that tenants feel heard, valued, and involved in shaping their home and environment.

We hope you enjoy reading the rest of this edition of the Tenant Times!

Many thanks,

Emily, Robyn and Jane

For the past few months, we’ve been working hard to bring in a new housing portal designed to enhance our online services for tenants.

It’s been no easy feat but in the long term it will be hugely beneficial offering a seamless and modern approach to managing all aspects of your tenancy. 

This new portal will go live soon and tenants will have a service that is user friendly with improved self-service functionality giving you more control. It also has improved security for personal information and the ability to be used on various devices. 

We’re encouraging tenants who can access services online to log on and create an account as soon as it goes live so you can begin to enjoy all the benefits of the new system. 

This is the first phase of MyHome so you will see that services like ‘reporting a repair’ and ‘access to rent information’ are unavailable for now. These will be turned on over the next few weeks so in the meantime, please call 01636 650 000 and select option 4 if you have any queries about these services.

Find out when MyHome is live here: https://www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/housingmanagementupdate

For the transfer to a new system to happen, we needed to close our online housing services and housing register temporarily to allow for a smooth transition. While some of our online housing services are back up and working, it will take longer to register applications for the housing register list and this won’t be live until late summer. We’ve written to, and will continue to write to, everyone affected, and anyone can contact the Council on 01636 650 000 if they are in need of emergency accommodation. 

We always try to provide you with an excellent service, but we know sometimes we let you down. If you’re unhappy with a service we have provided, you have the right to make a complaint. While we always encourage you to complain to us directly, if your complaint is about your Council property, you can contact the Housing Ombudsman Service at any time during the process for advice and support. There’s no need to complete the Council’s complaints process first. You can contact them via their website www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk, by calling 0300 111 3000 or by emailing them at info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk.

If you are unhappy with any council service, including anything housing related, you can make a complaint in writing via email or by post, or you can talk to us face to face or phone us. You can also ask someone to do this on your behalf or ask us to help you make a complaint.

Email: customerservices@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk

Online: www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/customerfeedback

Call: 01636 650 000

In person or post: Castle House, Great North Road, Newark, Notts, NG24 1BY

The Housing Ombudsman website has some useful information including  a downloadable ‘make a complaint request’ word document that can be found further down on its webpage here under ‘The complaints process’ heading: www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/residents/how-to-complain-to-your-landlord/

You can find out more on our complaints process on our website here: www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/customerfeedback/

Our brand-new Grant for Local Opportunities and Wellbeing (GLOW) launched earlier this year is already helping to improve the lives of our tenants across the district.

Several community groups have received funding and are planning exciting activities soon including:

Bilsthorpe Veterans Group: The group supports local veterans, and the team is planning a fun summer day out. GLOW has helped with the payment for the bus to take them on their trip.

Newark Friendship Group: The fund has helped provide the group with crafting supplies to spark their creativity.

Collingham, Gunthorpe, and Yorke Drive: Brand new information notice boards have been funded to keep local people in the loop with local news and events.

Newark Coproduction Group: Julian, who runs the group, applied for the funding on their behalf and they'll be using funds for musical instruments and creative supplies to make things even more fun!

Julian said: "This donation is truly amazing and will make a significant difference to our groups and the community as a whole. These groups are incredibly important to all our members and their mental health. Thank you for this generous funding."

If you are part of or know a community group who could benefit from £1,000 in funding, go to www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/glow to apply today! This fund is open all year round.

There was plenty to celebrate across the district for VE day and lots of our tenants were out and about having a good time in their communities!

In Bilsthorpe, many of our tenants attended the Bilsthorpe Breakfast Club event for a day of games, music and celebration! Thank you to everyone who was able to join!

Newark Food & Well-being Hub hosted a fantastic VE Day Afternoon Tea at Beaumont Walk Community Centre in Newark.

Residents and tenants had a great time sampling recipes from the past and the present. A huge well done to all the volunteers who made this event possible!

At Gladstone House, our Housing with Care scheme in Newark, residents had a lovely party celebrating! They enjoyed an afternoon tea street party style with lots of flag waving. Singer Johnny Victory was also there to entertain with some nostalgic tunes.

One Gladstone House’s resident, Joan, is 100 and remembers VE Day itself! Betty, aged 97, wore an incredible Women’s Land Army uniform and obviously won the best dressed prize!

Residents at our Extra Care Housing scheme at Broadleaves in Boughton got into the gardening spirit as the grounds received a fresh new look ahead of Summer.

In May the District Council's Grounds Maintenance team carried out a range of improvements, including:

• Planting a vibrant mix of flowers and greenery in the grounds
• Replacing bark in garden beds
• Refreshing gravel areas
• Cutting and tidying the grass across the site

Tenants were delighted with the results. Maureen and Paul Coupe shared: “We’ve seen a vast improvement already with new plants going in and it just gives us a good feeling. These new plants have improved the colour and structure of the area and it’s good for mental health too. We love gardening and it’s a boost to see all this as we’ve been waiting for this and it’s great to see it in place.”

The UK’s landline services are going digital. By 2027, most telephone providers will switch customers from analogue landlines over to new digital services.

This change affects devices or systems that rely on a traditional telephone line, such as a home phone but may also include other devices like your healthcare alarms. Many people are already switching as they upgrade to full fibre broadband and your provider (such as Virgin Media, Sky, O2 or BT) will contact you before the change to explain what you need to do.

In many cases, it may be as simple as plugging your phone into your broadband router instead of the wall socket. If you have any devices, especially if they are for your safety, please contact the company that supplied them to check they’ll still work after the switch.

Thinking about your children’s next step after school? Maybe you are looking to develop your own career, or to start a new one or know someone who is? Join us at our Apprentice Open Day on Friday 27 June, 12pm to 2pm at Castle House!

It’s a great chance to explore current apprenticeship opportunities, meet our teams, and hear from former apprentices about their journeys.

With interactive activities, a speaker’s corner, and stalls from our business units, it’s the perfect way to discover what it’s like to start or reset your career in a supportive and dynamic environment.

Calling all young bakers aged 10 – 16! Whether you’re an avid baker or just starting out, come and challenge your friends to the ultimate baking showdown! Each session young people will be given a recipe to make their own cake and then given guidance on how to decorate. We’re hosting events throughout the school holidays this summer and dates will be released in the coming weeks. Keep checking the Newark and Sherwood District Council Facebook page for the latest updates!

Don’t miss out on the fun, creativity and delicious treats. Show off your skills and compete for the title of the best baker in Newark and Sherwood!

All equipment and ingredients are provided for you! To find out more please email wellbeing@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk . Please let us know of any allergies.

We are currently looking for tenants interested in taking on the following roles to help us make sure your views are heard in decisions made about services provided to you:

Grounds Maintenance Champion – Take a 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 are performing.

Empty Homes Inspector – Inspecting properties when they ready to let to 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 and residents to tidy gardens, replace missing street signs or address overgrown land.

Most walkabouts start at 10am. You can find the full list of walkabouts on our website at: www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/estatewalkabouts/

Call 01636 650 000 or email getinvolved@newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk to contact the Tenant Engagement team to find out more.

Our team of Tenancy Officers are there to support you with help and guidance.

Meet one of our Officers: Grace

Hi, I’m Grace, Tenancy Officer for the Hawtonville Area.

I have worked for the District Council just over 3 years, I started in Customer Services and then became a Tenancy Officer, and I am really enjoying it!

I enjoy spending time out in the community and meeting tenants. My favourite film is Mamma Mia and my favourite food is Chinese.

If you need to speak to me, please don’t hesitate to contact me on 01636 650 000 and ask for Tenancy Officer Grace.

Ingredients:

• 100g unsalted butter - softened
• 65g caster sugar
• 65g light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 125g Greek or plain yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 5 tbsp milk
• 250g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200g raspberries
• 75g white chocolate chips

Method:

Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Beat the butter and sugar together for 5 mins until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs gradually and beat in until combined.

Stir in the yogurt, vanilla and milk. Fold in the flour, baking powder until you have a smooth batter. Finally, fold in 150g raspberries and white chocolate chips and fill the muffin cases three-quarters full.

Push 2 raspberries into the top of each muffin so they're sticking out slightly. Bake for 8 mins, then reduce the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and bake for 20-25 mins more until risen and golden, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

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