Tenants’ Link – more vital than ever before

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The popular tenants bulletin has seen many different formats over the years; starting off as a newspaper in 1989 before launching into a glossy magazine and then turning digital in 2016.

From celebrating local communities to keeping readers up to date with council housing news; the ethos of Tenants Link has always been to inform, inspire, and engage tenants and leaseholders.

The new Tenant Satisfaction Measures require us to keep you informed on how we are responding to your feedback and improving our performance in areas where you told us we could do better, such as complaints and repairs. So, the role of Tenants’ Link is more vital than ever before.

But as well as providing vital housing updates, Tenants’ Link also offers useful lifestyle advice for readers. This advice includes: how to save money and manage debt, find work and understand benefit entitlements, or improve health and wellbeing.

With over 16,000 current subscribers and more signing up each month, our circulation is growing. This is thanks to the fact that readers play a key role in helping to ensure Tenants’ Link remains relevant and interesting. We hold regular consultation meetings and invite readers to help shape the future of the e-bulletin, and we’re always looking for your suggestions of what we should include.

Would you like to see more competitions or special offers? Are you involved with a community group or planning a neighbourhood event or activity that we could promote? Would you like to champion a neighbour’s achievements or celebrate your local community? Do you have any useful information to share with other Tenants’ Link readers such as cleaning or household hacks, inside knowledge on local places of interest, or local history?

Helping to shape what goes in Tenants’ Link is just one of the ways that you can influence the housing service you receive. There are lots of other ways to make your voice heard such as:

• Becoming a tenant inspector to put our services under the spotlight
• Joining the Building Safety Tenants Group to discuss safety issues and challenge us on any building health and safety policies
• Helping us make improvements to the repairs and maintenance survey by adding your voice to the Repairs Panel
• Sitting on the Tenant Resource Group to look at how the housing budget is spent
• Signing up for the Tenant Scrutiny Panel to challenge us on whether the Housing service is meeting targets
• Joining your local tenants and residents association to raise concerns in your neighbourhood

For more details about these tenant groups and the many other ways that you can get involved with us please contact us by:

• Email: tenant.engagement@southampton.gov.uk 
• Phone: 023 8083 3185