Emma takes on new leadership role to help strengthen neighbourhood services

We are pleased to announce that Emma Watkins has been appointed as our new Assistant Director of Neighbourhoods, a role created to help us be more present in our communities and better support our tenants.

Emma has been part of Two Rivers Housing for more than 20 years. She joined us in 2003 as an Administrative Assistant and has held several roles across the organisation, including Head of Income. Over the last year. She has also been working as Interim Assistant Director of Housing, supporting our teams through a major internal restructure in the last year.

Listening to what tenants need

This new role comes directly from what our tenants have told us over the last 18 months. Our tenants said they wanted to see more of us in their neighbourhoods and that we needed to respond more quickly and effectively to issues like anti-social behaviour, neighbour disputes and provide wider community support.

Since then, we’ve been investing in our frontline teams to help deliver that and offer a more local service for our tenants. This includes a new dedicated safer neighbourhoods team and a larger neighbourhood management team, which will help us spend more time in our communities and help us provide support to tenants when they need us.

Liz Evans, our Executive Director of People and Neighbourhoods, said:

“We’ve listened carefully to what tenants have told us over the last year. They want to see more of us around their neighbourhoods, they want us to support community events, and they want us to work closely with them to tackle issues like anti-social behaviour.

“We’ve invested in our frontline teams so we can make those improvements and offer more support to the thousands of families living in our homes.”

“We’re really pleased to appoint Emma to this new role. She has been part of Two Rivers Housing for many years and knows our tenants, our homes and our neighbourhoods. She always puts people first and her experience and care will help us shape services around what our tenants tell us matters most.”

As Assistant Director of Neighbourhoods, Emma will lead our community engagement, income collection and neighbourhood management teams.

Emma is excited to take on this new role and told us:

“I’m really looking forward to working with the wider team and with our tenants to keep improving our services. We know there’s a lot to do, but we have a great team of people who care deeply about our tenants and want them to feel heard, supported and proud of where they live.”