Housing Resident Engagement Strategy 2025 to 2028

Housing Services – implemented March 2025.
Signed off by Resident and Landlord Partnership (RLP) on 8 January 2025.
Signed off by Full Council on 27 February 2025.

Introduction

Resident is used throughout this strategy to refer to tenants, leaseholders, shared owners, licence holders of Woking Borough Council Housing Service. This also covers other residents who have received a service from Woking Borough Council Housing Service. This strategy sets out the Council’s approach to Resident Engagement within the Housing Service.

The Housing Resident Engagement Strategy has been co-created with Residents through workshops and focus groups. Volunteers from the Resident and Landlord Partnership (RLP) have provided an introduction:

“Thank you for taking the time to read the Housing Resident Engagement Strategy.

As residents (tenants, leaseholders, shared owners and licence holders), our quality of life is directly impacted by the service provided by our landlord and our living standards. Therefore, this Housing Resident Engagement Strategy is very important in setting the scene for how we, as residents, can work in partnership with our landlord, Woking Borough Council.

We believe the Housing Resident Engagement Strategy provides a clear understanding for how Resident voice can assist our landlord in improving and achieving more. For us, this strategy calls for mutual respect between all stakeholders and a key focus on empowering residents to influence decision-making.

Whether we have been involved in volunteering for one month or ten years, the resident engagement opportunities we have experienced have already had a positive impact on us.

This was discussed greatly at our most recent workshop. We want to ensure that all residents can BE INFORMED by providing feedback of their experiences with the Housing Service, BE HEARD with actions taken and BE EMPOWERED through formal engagement groups that scrutinise performance.

Housing Resident Engagement makes us feel valued, provides a voice for each of our communities and helps us to gain knowledge in topics of interest. There are positive social, health and wellbeing value when getting involved. This strategy provides an opportunity for residents to gain knowledge and learn from others, building a supportive community of volunteers.

It has been enjoyable co-creating the strategy with the Resident Engagement Team, formalising what we are currently doing and what we aim to achieve next. We are excited for the next three years and what this strategy aims to achieve.

We would like to thank other residents, council staff, councillors and other stakeholders for supporting our work. We hope to work much more closely with stakeholders throughout the duration of this strategy to achieve improvements and solutions for the Woking Borough Council Housing Service.

We encourage other residents to get involved!”