London housing associations have pledged greater transparency for social housing residents in estate building and regeneration plans.

Earlier today the London Assembly housing committee met housing associations and experts working with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan on developing housing policies.

Labour London Assembly member Nicky Gavron wanted to know how housing associations would make estate development projects more transparent for social housing residents.

Simon Theobald, head of customer engagement at London housing association Metropolitan, said: “We are making more moves to share designs at early stages of the housing design process; something we could have done better in the past.

“We want to have conversations with residents early on in the process and continue this dialogue with them until the end.”

“We also have a complaints panel, if we have big complaints we make sure we have face-to-face visits with residents and that complaints are dealt with properly.”

Paul Hackett, chairman of g15 housing association group, which also works London-wide, said that transparency in the housing process was “really important”.

Mr Hackett said: “We work with residents before estates are built and allow them to voice their concerns.

“Gaining trust from residents is also key.

“Our operational performance team also looks at complaints and we make sure they are something we can learn from.”

Ms Gavron was also keen to know if housing associations were coming under more pressure in the wake of the Grenfell fire last year.

Mr Hackett replied: “Since Grenfell housing associations services have changed; we make sure residents know how fire safety is supposed to work.”

But Mr Hackett came under fire from Green Party assembly member Sian Berry for not “proactively” publishing the documents and only making them “available on request”.

Mr Hackett said: “We would rather talk to residents about the risk on their buildings.”

James Murray, the deputy mayor for housing and residential development also pointed to the need for a national Housing Commissioner for social housing residents.

Mr Murray said: “We want to make sure the system for dealing with for tenant’s voices is effective.”

But Conservative assembly member Andrew Boff said: “You seem to be asking the Government to do things rather than do things yourself. What is being done to make sure housing tenants are at the heart of GLA strategy?”

Mr Murray replied: “In terms of involving residents in policy decisions it’s important for us to include residents – we got feedback from residents before publishing our Good Practice Guide for Estate regenerations.

The Good Practice Guide for regeneration has now led to an official policy being passed which will allow residents on estates to have a vote on whether their homes are demolished following a public consultation period.

Mr Murray added: “Involving tenants and leaseholders in the production of our policy is really important for us and the Mayor at City Hall.”