Thousands of residents across North Staffordshire will be kept safe and warm this winter thanks to an award-winning team of gas safety experts.

Aspire Housing's Building Services Team has scooped a national award from the National Home Improvement Council.

Award judges praised Aspire Housing's approach to gas servicing and safety and recognised its 'outstanding' achievement in ensuring that every Aspire home is fully, 100% gas safety compliant.

Tim Edwards, Director of Operations for The Aspire Group, said: "The safety and well-being of all our customers is extremely important to us.

"This year, our gas safety team has visited every single Aspire property to ensure gas supply systems meet exacting standards.

"This is actually quite hard to do, because you need to arrange a visiting time and it is not easy for everyone to be in during the day, even though we visit by appointment."

As part of its drive to encourage tenants to agree to visits by an engineer, Aspire Housing took an innovative approach and produced an instructional DVD.

The DVD uses a short, acted drama and shows the benefits of a gas service visit and the potentially fatal dangers that could result if a service is not carried out.

"The project was a great success," said Mr Edwards. "It is vital that customers allow a gas safety engineer into their homes once a year and the DVD has helped to ensure that our customers' homes are safe."

The DVD is now being offered by The Aspire Group tailored to other UK housing associations to help them encourage all residents to accept an annual visit from their gas engineer.