Working well together

We involve residents in a wide range of projects and activities to improve services, both locally and nationally.

We do this through co-creation projects; which is staff, residents, and stakeholders working together as equals to design brilliant services.

Read more about some of our most recent local and co-creation projects below.

Residents scrutinising our services

Our Resident Scrutiny Panel is a diverse group of residents who carry out detailed reviews of our services, sharing recommendations to help us improve.

In 2024 they conducted reviews into Tenant and Resident Associations and the systems and processes in place to tackle damp and mould.

View their findings

Farley Bank Estate, Hastings

We continue to team up with residents of Farley Bank Estate in Hastings to help improve relationships and address issues that matter to local residents.

Working in partnership with Hastings Borough Council, East Sussex County Council and the Police, we’re tackling issues of mopeds speeding, fly tipping, repairing steps and tidying the areas that look unkempt. Through partnership working and listening to residents, changes are now becoming evident.

We’ve jet washed play areas and repaired the steps. Local artists and young people have transformed an old mural with funding from Southern Housing and Hastings Borough Council. Rubbish has been cleared from alleyways and we’re working on extending resident gardens to prevent future problems arising.

This work follows the resident event we held last year of working together to clear fly-tipping.

Image: Residents and Southern Housing colleagues at the Farley Bank clean up.

Improving how we respond to resident enquiries

We take on average over 40,000 enquires per month, so when buying a new system we sought feedback from our residents. We heard their thoughts about our contact centre and the service they receive to help us improve resident experience.

20 residents attended demonstrations, gave feedback and helped to deice which organisation we should work with to develop the new system, being created over the next year.

We also held a workshop to go into detail about contact centre experiences and how they prefer to contact us. Residents will continue to work with us throughout this project.

Success will mean we develop a new system which helps us deliver great experiences.

Read more about the improvements we're making

Hindle House

We’ve been working with residents at Hindle House in Hackney (London) to build relationships and improve services and the neighbourhood.

Residents at Hindle House were reporting issues of damp and mould, repairs and anti-social behaviour at our first engagement session in June 2023.

Communication was improved by creating a residents’ association. The team held five engagement sessions, meeting 68 residents face to face and 176 online, delivering consultations on various projects.

As a result of co-creating with our residents, we’ve carried out extensive repairs to roofs (including replacing damaged tiles, gutter cleaning, repairing disconnected drainpipes and installing new brackets), stopped water coming into communal areas with new door seals and thresholds, addressed low water pressure issues and delivered bike boxes to the estate.

Related information:

Our Resident Governance structure

Find out how residents scrutinise our services.

Meet our involved residents

Find out who's already working with us to create better services

Join us

It’s easy to join – you don’t need any experience of being on a panel, you don’t even need to leave your home. We hold sessions online and at times that are most convenient for you.

So, what are you waiting for?