Three Valleys Housing celebrates supporting rangers

A housing officer in Ilkeston has been honoured by her neighbourhood for encouraging youngsters to take pride in their community.

Mandy Seaton from Three Valleys Housing was presented with a statuette from the Cotmanhay Neighbourhood Management Group (CNMG) for supporting the Junior Rangers, a scheme to get local children involved in environmental awareness and community safety.

After receiving the award at an event hosted by Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service, Mandy chose to share her success by taking the award to Cotmanhay Junior School where all 12 of the nine to ten year-old Junior Rangers go to school.

The scheme was launched by Andrew Savage of CNMG, a resident-led partnership group, last year with funding and support from Three Valleys Housing.

As part of the programme, Mandy spent an afternoon showing the children around a Three Valleys Housing estate, discussing with them the importance of respect and what they considered to be the duties of a housing officer.

Mandy Seaton said: “I was delighted to receive the award. The Junior Rangers play a major role in encouraging children to take pride and ownership of their community and we are happy to support them.

“During their visit, I encouraged the children to come up with reasons why we have housing officers, as well as promoting the need to keep areas free of rubbish, graffiti and damage which impressed them.

“I also asked them to come up with ideas as to how they would use the land at Donner Crescent that we cleaned up recently. Three Valleys Housing is now considering those ideas.”