- Emma Watkins appointed to newly created role of Assistant Director of Neighbourhoods
- Two Rivers Housing is investing in its housing team to provide a more localised neighbourhood management service to its tenants
- The move follows a service review and feedback from its tenants
Two Rivers Housing has appointed Emma Watkins to the newly created role of Assistant Director of Neighbourhoods.
Emma joined Two Rivers Housing in 2003 as an Administrative Assistant. Since then, she has worked her way up through the organisation and was appointed as Income Manager in 2019, before being made Head of Income in 2023. Over the last 12 months, she has been working as Interim Assistant Director of Housing working with Executive Director of People and Neighbourhoods Liz Evans to support the team through an internal restructure.
The new Assistant Director role has been put in place in response to feedback from tenants and the housing team and follows a review of the service area at the end of 2024. Tenants told the organisation that they wanted the team to be more visible in and around its neighbourhoods and improve the way it deals with issues such as anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood management and community support.
In response to this, Two Rivers Housing has invested in its frontline housing team to provide a more localised neighbourhood management service. This includes a new dedicated safer neighbourhoods team and increasing the size of its neighbourhood management team.
Speaking about the restructure, Liz Evans, Executive Director of People and Neighbourhoods, said:
“We’ve listened to what our tenants have told us over the last 12 months. They want to see our team out and about in our neighbourhoods, they want us to be able to support community events and improvements s, and they want us to work more effectively with them to tackle things like anti-social behaviour and neighbour disputes.
“We’ve invested in our frontline teams, so that we can make the improvements our tenants want to see and provide additional support to the thousands of families living in our when it is needed.”
On Emma’s appointment, Liz added:
“We are so pleased to have appointed Emma to the role of Assistant Director of Neighbourhoods. She has been with the organisation for many years and has been instrumental in delivering one of the best performing income collection teams in the country.
“Her knowledge and expertise of our tenants and their homes coupled with her genuine desire to put tenants at the heart of everything she does will help us shape truly customer-focussed services.
Emma will oversee the Two Rivers Housing community engagement, income collection and neighbourhood management teams.
Speaking about her appointment Emma said:
“I’m really looking forward to working with the wider team and with our tenants to improve our services and make sure that we can provide the support that our tenants need.
“I know that we have some work to do, but I know that we have a great team in place that want to make sure our neighbourhoods are places that people love to live in and that tenants feel heard and valued.”