Tamworth Borough Council recently held its first Landlord summit to encourage landlords to come together to discuss issues relevant to the town. The summit was the first of what it is hoped will be a regular arrangement to help strengthen partnership working. The summit brought together Council officers, housing association representatives, private landlords and a tenant representative.

“The summit brought together people from different sectors so that we can all learn from each other and improve the housing services we provide to our tenants” said Tina Mustafa, Head of Housing Operations “We can keep in touch with what is happening across the borough, share knowledge and gain greater understanding of how we all work which will hopefully lead to improving how we work together. We carried out a survey of the landlords invited to see what they felt would be relevant to discuss. We wanted to make sure that everyone got something out of the meeting.”

“Tamworth Borough Council is committed to improving housing standards across the borough and we can achieve this through working with partners and crossing boundaries outside the public sector” said Councillor Mary Oates, portfolio holder for Quality of Life. “We hope that the joint working on choice based lettings, including private landlords will see a real increase in rental properties across all tenures that customers can choose from”

Everyone sat around the table had a great deal of knowledge and experience from all different backgrounds and sectors and it important that we share this information with each other with the aim of improving housing standards across the borough.”

It is hoped the Landlords in Tamworth will work together on key challenges such as financial inclusion, equality and diversity and allocations to improve customer experiences.