Tenants and Residents Association

Being part of a Tenants and Residents Association (TRA) is a great way to get involved with improving your community and environment.

Areas with an active TRA generally have a reputation for creating a strong sense of community cohesion.

What is a TRA?

TRAs are made up of local residents who get together to represent the views and interests of everyone living in a particular area. They work in partnership with Southwark Council to help make their neighbourhood a better place to live.

TRAs organise events and activities to bring local people together and deal with challenges they may be facing, including housing issues such as repairs and maintenance, or other community concerns such as the environment or crime.

Made up of residents and an elected committee, Pre Covid19 TRAs held regular face to face meetings throughout the year and Resident Services Officers would have attended these meetings to give updates and look into any issues raised by residents.  Many TRA’s are now using online platforms, such as Zoom, to meet virtually and during the pandemic some new TRA’s have been set up using online virtual meetings

The committee and their roles

There are four key roles in a TRA committee:

• Chair: the Chair keeps overall control of the TRA by encouraging discussions, and leads the meeting with the agenda ensuring everyone gets a chance to express their views and understands decisions.
• Vice Chair: the Vice Chair heads up the meetings when the Chair can’t attend, and steps in when needed.
• Secretary: the Secretary helps prepare and distribute the agenda for meetings, as well as taking and circulating minutes.
• Treasurer: the Treasurer looks after the TRA’s finances, including reporting the bank balance along with recent transactions, completing grant applications, and distributing copies of the financial report.

Who can stand for the committee or other involved positions?

Everybody who lives in the area as a legal tenant or homeowner is a member of the TRA, and anybody can choose to stand for a more involved position, such as the committee roles or block representatives.

Training and opportunities

Through Southwark Tenants Fund there are a number of bespoke training courses to develop specific committee skills, such as Chairing, Secretary, and Treasurer skills and these are currently being delivered virtually.  In addition there is a selection of online courses on a variety of subjects for you to choose from.

Funding

Southwark Tenants Fund provides grant funding for TRAs to put towards equipment, administration tools, events, activities and making improvements to the neighbourhood. During the pandemic TRA’s are continuing to be funded.  There are also a number of other ways TRAs can access funding, including Getting Involved Grant (GIG), Cleaner Greener Safer, Neighbourhoods Fund, Big Lottery funding, and other local and national funding opportunities.

Joining or starting a TRA

For a new TRA to be formed, residents will need to show support from the local community. If there is enough interest, we will help residents in the area concerned to elect the members of the committee at an inaugural meeting and agree the TRA constitution with you, and approve funding the TRA.

Currently, due to the pandemic, the Council is not encouraging TRA’s to meet face to face but to meet virtually via platforms such as Zoom, The Council can arrange the inaugural meeting for residents using Zoom and for those residents that don’t have a devise to access Zoom there is the opportunity to dial into the meeting using a regular phone and the cost is met by the Council. 

If you’re interested in joining or setting up a TRA, please telephone the Tenant & Homeowner Involvement Team on 020 525 3326 or send an email to resident.participation@southwark.gov.uk .