West Cornforth - Local offers

We listened, we acted

In Autumn 2024, we spoke with tenants living in West Cornforth to learn what would help their community and every day life. With more than 80 tenants taking part, their feedback helped us agree on three Local Offers for each community, along with our partners.

We will keep working with residents and partners until March 2028 to deliver these offers

Our anti-social behaviour (ASB) offer

We know how important it is to feel safe in your community, and we play an active part in making that happen by working closely with you, the police and Durham County Council. When issues around anti-social behaviour arise, we act quickly and work together with our partners to put things right.

We will always take prompt, appropriate and decisive action to prevent anti-social behaviour and manage any incidents that affect you or your community.

To help us understand how well we’re doing, we use information from both our own records and police data. In 2024/25, there were 58 reports of anti-social behaviour to the police and 31 reports made directly to us in West Cornforth. Our aim this year is to reduce the number of reported incidents by 5%.

Support with anti-social behaviour Report anti-social behaviour

Our environment and open spaces offer

We know how important it is to look after shared spaces so they feel safe, clean and welcoming for everyone. You’ve told us that the streets and open spaces in West Cornforth need to look better, and that issues such as litter, dog fouling and the general appearance of the high street should be improved.

If you spot anything that doesn’t look right, you can report it quickly and easily through the My Livin app. If the issue falls outside our area, we’ll make sure you’re put in touch with the right team at Durham County Council.

We carry out regular inspections of the community, including open spaces, to make sure everything is maintained to a good standard.
To measure how well we’re doing, we look at the number of issues we identify during our estate inspections and how quickly we put things right. In 2024/25, neighbourhood satisfaction in West Cornforth was 71.86%. We’ll begin measuring grounds maintenance satisfaction for West Cornforth from 2025/26.

Report fly tipping Estate inspections

Our energy efficient homes offer

We are in a climate emergency, and we need to take action now to create homes and communities that can adapt to our changing climate. This means making our communities more resilient and improving the energy efficiency of our homes.

In West Cornforth, we’ve already begun fitting energy‑saving measures in many of our properties, and we will continue this work over the coming years.

Our aim is to make sure every Livin home in West Cornforth reaches at least an EPC band C rating. This will help reduce carbon emissions, lower energy bills and create more comfortable homes for our customers. At the end of 2024/25, we had 323 homes in West Cornforth. Of these, 261 homes (80.80%) had an EPC rating of C, 61 homes were rated D, and one home was rated E. Our goal is to bring all properties up to at least EPC band C by the end of 2027.

Environmental Sustainability

We acted and will continue to act…

We have a stakeholder group for the village that includes tenants and partners. This group helps deliver activities and checks progress on the local offers.

If you would like to join the group please let us know

Getting involved

How do I apply for a Livin home or bungalow?

We advertise all of our available homes on our Find A Home page, simply visit this page for more information.

Before you can place a bid on one of our homes, you must first have an active account with the relevant Choice Based Lettings Scheme. Almost all our homes are located in County Durham and therefore are allocated through the Durham Key Options scheme. Durham Key Options (DKO) is a partnership between Durham County Council and landlords across County Durham.

We have a small number of homes which are located outside Durham, these are all advertised through Tees Valley HomeFinder, Hartlepool HomeSearch and Darlington HomeSearch; They are similar to Durham Key Options but we do not process applications registered for these schemes. If you wish to register an application for homes advertised in this area, please apply directly.

Once your application is approved, you will then be able to bid on homes that meet your needs. You can access the application form directly by visiting the relevant Choice Based Lettings system.

How long will it take for my application to be processed?

We aim to start processing your application within 10 working days. If we require any further information after this point, we will contact you to ask for this. Once we have received all the required information we will notify you of our decision within 20 days, and if accepted we will activate your account. You can also check your application status online by logging into the DKO portal.

How can I get involved with Livin and help to shape services?

To find out more about the different ways you can get involved, please visit our getting involved section.

Can I apply to buy my home under Right to Buy?

Tenants who have been with Livin since before the transfer from Sedgefield Council in 2009 may have the “Preserved Right to Buy” their property. Full details of the scheme are available on the Government Right to Buy website. If you are thinking of applying, please contact us.

Can I apply to buy my home under Right to Acquire?

If you have been a tenant for 3 or more years you may have the right to buy your property under the Right to Acquire scheme. Full details of the scheme are available on the Government Right to Acquire website. If you are thinking of applying, please contact us.