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Housing office changes to meet customers’ needs

Last year a customer survey told us that eight out of ten Nottingham City Homes’ customers prefer to contact us by phone.

So we’ve been reviewing our local housing office network to find out how regularly they are used, the cost of running them and whether they now provide value for money.

In March 2009, following consultation with local tenants, we closed Southglade Housing Office. This office was only used by a small number of tenants and did not give rent payers value for money.

Over the spring and summer we have been reviewing the Victoria Centre, Bilborough and Lenton housing offices, as these are the least used. Lenton and Bilborough offices both take rent payments, but receive relatively few other enquiries. The Victoria Centre housing office does not take rent payments and gets few visitors. We have consulted with tenants, leaseholders, Tenant and Resident Associations and Area Panels and acted on the feedback received.

We have listened to local tenants and leaseholders and will be piloting part-time opening at these housing offices rather than the proposed closures. The three-month pilot will begin on Monday 7th September and the results will be reviewed in early 2010.

The offices will be open on the following days:

Bilborough: Monday, Wednesday (from 10.30am) and Friday
Lenton: Tuesday and Friday
Victoria Centre: Monday, Thursday and Friday (9.30am to 12.30pm and 1.45pm to 4.30pm)

We have many ways for tenants to pay their rent that are simple, more convenient and much cheaper to process than visiting a housing office.

These include:

• Direct Debit
• Over the phone with a debit or credit card
• On-line
• At your local post office
• At Paypoint outlets (at local shops, supermarkets, newsagents etc). Visit the PayPoint website to find your nearest PayPoint location.

Gill Moy, Director of Housing at Nottingham City Homes, said:

It is important that we provide the right services for our customers, giving them the best value for money on their rent.

Eight out of ten of our tenants and leaseholders prefer to contact us by phone, so our offices are becoming less well used. We have listened to customers and are keeping Bilborough, Lenton and Victoria Centre offices open part-time. This will enable us to look at how services are accessed, in consultation with tenants and leaseholders.

We want to provide tenants and leaseholders with the best possible service we can, at the best price. Any money we save will be invested into improving key services to all our customers.

Tenants can contact us on 0845 330 31 31 for further information or to comment on the housing office review.

(Fri 4 September 2009 09:00:00 GMT)

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