We’re pleased to announce that we were finalists at the East Midland’s Energy Efficiency Awards  last week for ‘Regional housing association or landlord of the year’. While we didn’t win, we still won a commended award and will be put through to the national awards ceremony later this year.

Renewable energy company FDG Group nominated us for the award after seeing the work we do to help improve the energy efficiency of our customers’ homes.

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 our customer service team last year due to high electricity usage and costs. Darren Lewis, one of our asset surveyors, visited Ryann’s home 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 contributing to his higher energy usage and bills. I looked at other possible heating systems, but high heat retention storage heaters were still the best solution for his home, so we replaced the current heaters for new Dimplex heaters which have the benefit of being controlled by a central hub in the home”

Ryann said: “The new storage heaters have lowered my energy usage loads! 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 more affordable to heat homes.”