Keep up to date with what's happening in the world of resident involvement.
Scrutiny Panel members attend TPAS National Tenants Conference in Coventry
In July, the Resident Involvement team, accompanied by two dedicated members of the Scrutiny Panel, attended the TPAS National Tenants Conference 2025 in Coventry. The two-day event brought together over 200 tenants, housing association staff, and sector professionals from across the country.
The conference featured a range of informative workshops and keynote sessions, including insightful presentations from the Regulator of Social Housing. Attendees had the opportunity to share ideas, explore best practice, and strengthen their commitment to resident influence and service improvement.
We returned inspired and full of fresh ideas to enhance resident involvement and collaboration within our communities!
To find out more about the Scrutiny Panel and see some of the changes that have been made from their past reviews, visit the dedicated Scrutiny Panel pages here.
Resident Inspectors - Nurture
We work with residents across the county to ensure the grounds maintenance is being carried out to our 3-star standard, as document in the new Estate Standards.
Resident inspectors complete online monthly surveys to feedback what has gone well and not so well. We then share this feedback with Nurture and West Kent’s Contracts Manager to help improve the service we deliver to you. At West Kent we believe it’s important that we listen to you, encourage you to take part and make giving feedback as easy as possible.
In January we opened a competition to encourage regular inspections. We exchanged every monthly survey submitted with an entry to our prize draw for a £50 gift voucher. This competition has run over 6 months and we are pleased to announce the lucky winner is one of our Resident Inspectors living in Palmers Orchard in Shoreham!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved on this project for the time you take to help us keep our communities clean and enjoyable places to live.
If you are interested in becoming a Resident Inspector for your area please use the survey link here to register your interest.
RESIDENT INSPECTORS NEWSLETTER - JULY 2025
Read previous Resident Inspectors newsletters
New Homes Advisory Group - June meeting
On Monday 9 June we had our first full meeting with the newly formed ‘New Homes Advisory Group’. Seven residents kindly gave up their time on a Monday evening to join an online meeting with our Resident Involvement and Development teams to discuss their experiences of living in a new build West Kent home.
To prepare for the meeting, we had sent the group a survey beforehand to find out what they like about their home, what they’d improve, and what features are most important. We then used this feedback to have some more in-depth discussions and covered topics such as built-in storage, hard flooring vs. carpets, layouts that improve soundproofing, energy efficiency, and water butts!
We are so grateful for the enthusiasm this group brought to the meeting, and everyone had something valuable to contribute. Their feedback will be applied to the design briefs for an upcoming regeneration project, and we’ll meet again later this year to show them how this feedback has been put into action.
Involving residents in the design of new homes is so important to West Kent. We want to build homes that work for people - not just on paper, but in practice!
If you'd like to know more about this group, or other ways you can get involved, please email residentinvolvement@wkha.org.uk or visit our opportunities available page.
Mystery shopping
In September 2024 a group of nine residents volunteered to be mystery shoppers of our Customer Contact Centre - carrying out 'shops' by both telephone and email.
Mystery shopping is a way for us to involve residents in shaping the delivery of a service that is designed for them. Our mystery shoppers play a very important role by giving us a true picture of how West Kent interacts with residents.
You can read the full report from the 2024 mystery shopping here: Mystery shopping 2024
If you would like to be involved in mystery shopping in 2025, please register your interest here.
Resident Inspectors - Nurture
The resident involvement team are meeting regularly with our grounds maintenance contractor, Nurture, to raise any issues that our Resident Inspectors find. We hope to get any issues resolved promptly and will feedback to the Resident Inspectors with a regular monthly newsletter. You can see the latest Resident Inspectors newsletters on the link below:
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - May 2025
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - April 2025
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - March 2025
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - February 2025
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - January 2025
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - December 2024
Resident Inspectors Newsletter - November 2024
It is important that we continue to collect feedback and share your findings with Nurture, so that they know what is going well and what improvements need to be made.
If you would like to join our inspectors then please get in touch by emailing residentinvolvement@wkha.org.uk or completing a short online form to register your interest.
That's our news - but what are your views?!
You can find out more information about reviewing policies as part of our newly formed Resident Influencers group here. Alternatively, keep an eye out on our consultations page to have your say on any wider consultations.