The views of thousands of tenants are being sought by North East housing association Bernicia as it embarks on delivering a £190m investment programme into new and existing homes.
Over the next month, tenants will be asked what they think of Bernicia as a business and the services it delivers.
The information they provide will help Bernicia with its future decision-making and ensure its services exactly meet the changing needs and requirements of tenants.
The survey is the largest gauge of tenant satisfaction undertaken by Bernicia for three years and will be an important benchmarking exercise for the housing association which has just launched a major five-year investment programme.
Bernicia aims to build at least 500 new homes and pump £60m into improving its existing 14,000 properties by 2023.
It will also boost support services for its 60,000 customers who live in properties across Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, County Durham and Hartlepool.
“This is a really important piece of work – it will provide a baseline in the first year of our new corporate strategy and importantly it demonstrates we listen to our tenants and care about what they tell us,” said Jeannie McMillan, Director of Housing Services.
“The survey includes questions about repairs, homes, neighbourhoods, how we are perceived by our tenants and how easy it is to do business with us.
“Our tenants’ views will help us with decision-making about how we deliver our services in future and benchmark where we stand on delivering on our promises to provide quality, affordable homes in communities people want to live in.
“From this week, around 7,000 of our tenants will be invited to take part in the survey by submitting their views either by freepost or online.”
Industry leading marketing research agency BMG Research will undertake the survey on Bernicia’s behalf.