We were very honoured earlier this year to find out that renewable energy company FDG Group had nominated us for ‘Regional housing association or landlord of the year’ at the East Midland’s Energy Efficiency Awards.
While we didn’t win, we still received a commended award and will go through to the national awards later this year.
Stephen Allan, Director at FDG Group said: “From working with Futures on different housing sites, we can tell they genuinely care and give a personal touch to their customers, something you don’t always get. Your staff always turn up, speak to customers and actually explain the benefits.
“You helped a friend of mine that had old storage heaters which were costing him quite a lot to run. You worked with him to replace them, and it’s made such a huge difference to his bills and his family. I’ve already seen how you engage with your customers and deliver services for people who need it the most, so I wanted to nominate you for the award. Really well done to Futures to get in the top three, that’s out of lots of local authorities and organisations so it’s a big achievement.”
Futures customer Ryann Bingham first contacted us last year about his high electricity costs. Darren Lewis, one of our asset surveyors, visited Ryann’s to see how he could help.
Darren said: “He had the first generation of high heat retention storage heaters, which were difficult to use and would’ve been pushing up his energy usage and bills. I looked at other possible heating systems, but storage heaters were still the best solution for his home, so we upgraded him to Dimplex heaters which are controlled by a central hub in the home”
Ryann said: “The new heaters have lowered my energy usage lots! I was paying around £15 a day and now I’m down to around £6 a day. I can control everything on an app, rather than having to set each heater individually and I also now have all the heaters on – because of the cost I used to only have a few of them on.”
Darren said: “Just to be shortlisted for this award is a great achievement. The Energy Efficiency Awards only consider nominations that really stand out as making a difference to people’s lives, so this is a fantastic acknowledgement of how we help our customers. It’s great to be part of a team that’s helping customers to live in warmer and cheaper to heat homes.”
