A review into the ways in which social landlords engage with residents has been published by the council.

The Council and the Tenants’ Champion for the borough, have carried out a review of how social landlords communicate and engage with their residents.

A review was carried out as a result of concerns being raised by residents and communities who felt that they were not being listened to when it came to how their homes and estates were managed.

Cllr Jim Millard, Tenants Champion for Richmond upon Thames, said: “I wanted this review to identify what good practice is in this sector so this could be shared and promoted but to also take a health check on where our local housing associations were with engaging with their residents and communities.

"We are finding ways to better reach out to residents and involve them in decisions we make and we want our housing association partners to join us in this.

“All too often housing associations have drifted away from their roots as they have merged and adapted to challenging economic conditions.

"It is a concern of mine that some housing associations have lost touch with local communities and this review is a first step in looking at how we address this.

"I hope that by establishing a working group with our key housing association partners to discuss best practice and shared thinking around future resident engagement, together we will be able to ensure that standards in this borough lead the way.”

Cllr Millard led the review in his role as one of the country’s few Tenants’ Champions.

Whilst only being in this role for just over a year, he found in a number of cases investment in tenant and community engagement could have dealt with some issues before they became significant problems.

The results of the review show that whilst housing associations do understand the importance of working closely with residents, more could be done to encourage and support people in order that they can influence and shape services.

Richmond upon Thames has around 10,000 social rent homes which are managed by 20 housing associations.

The largest social landlord in the borough is RHP who manage 6,300 social rent homes, as well as 1,800 leasehold homes.