Complaints, compliments and feedback on housing services

If you are one of our tenants (you live in a house owned by Uttlesford District Council) we want to hear from you. You can tell us if you have a complaint, a compliment or you just want to give us feedback about our housing service or any repairs we've carried out.

What a complaint is

The Housing Ombudsman defines a complaint as:

An expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents.
 

If you have a compliment or feedback

Use our general feedback form to tell us your experience of Uttlesford District Council so that we know what we've done right or how we need to improve in the future. Alternatively you can call us on 01799 510510 or email uconnect@uttlesford.gov.uk
 

If you have a complaint

Find out how to make a complaint and what to do at the different stages.

Stage 1: make a complaint

You can complain by completing our housing repairs online complaints form below:

Make a complaint

Alternatively you can complain by:

• email to housingcomplaints@uttlesford.gov.uk
• writing a letter to: Housing, Uttlesford District Council, London Road, Saffron Walden CB11 4ER
• by calling us on 01799 510510

We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and send the stage 1 response to your complaint within 10 working days.

Please note that complex complaints may take longer to investigate. Should this be the case, we will keep you informed of the likely timescale for fully resolving your complaint. If we need more than the 10 working days to resolve your complaint we will discuss this with you first and provide clear reasons why we need to extend the timescale for a further period of time.

Stage 2: ask for a review of your complaint

If you are unhappy with the way your complaint has been dealt with at stage 1 you can escalate the complaint to stage 2.

You can do this by contacting the Director of Housing, Health and Communities, Kerry Clifford, by writing to her at the Council Offices or emailing her at kclifford@uttlesford.gov.uk.

Kerry will then investigate your complaint further and will respond to you within 10 working days.

Refer to the Ombudsman

If you remain dissatisfied after your stage 2 response you can escalate your complaint to the Housing Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is an independent public body who can investigate how the council has handled your complaint.

Please note you can contact the Housing Ombudsman Service at any point during the complaint process at info@housing-ombudsman.org.uk. They cannot investigate your complaint whilst your complaint is going through our internal complaints procedure however the Ombudsman may be able to help you and your landlord reach a resolution.

The Housing Ombudsman has a Complaints Handling Code that sets out good practice for all social housing landlords, including Uttlesford District Council. The code helps us respond to complaints effectively and fairly.

You can find out more about Ombudsman services on the Local Government Ombudsman website and the Housing Ombudsman Service website.

Our complaints policy

Find information about what we do at each stage in our  Uttlesford Housing Complaints Policy (PDF) [172KB]

You can also find out more about our general Compliments, suggestions and complaints policy.

We will not tolerate abusive, persistent or vexatious complaints.