Natalia: Since we moved to the area we have asked the council for help a lot      of times and they've always been very nice and helpful. In our first flat, for example, there was this nasty smell and we rang   environmental services and they made the landlord clean the drains, so that was really good

Iain: Yeah, do you remember that flat? There was house next door... it       was a… it was an empty house and there were people taking drugs             all the time and there were loads of problems, but, erm… again the council were really helpful, because I just called the housing department and they were able to put us on the waiting list for the place that we've got now, it's just much better, so they've been really helpful there.

Natalia: Yes, and they also helped us fill in the forms to claim for council tax discount because I wasn't working and you were on a low salary.

Iain: Yeah, they helped us as well to get free school meals for our son Thomas. I just rang up the education department, they sent us some forms, erm… I think I called them back to get some of the information to fill in the form, we sent it off and now we don't have to pay for those, which has been really useful.

Natalia: Oh yeah, very helpful indeed, Now that we're more settled in the area we don't ask for help as much in terms of accommodation, but we still use the leisure section in the website a lot, because I take our young Thomas to the swimming pool, so I check schedules             there, and I also take him to the library, um… to meet other mums and kids and I also check activities going on at the library in their website, so that's still very helpful...Iain: I also used their website to get a better job, they've got a job vacancies section, I looked on there, they were looking for a gardener and it was better than what I was doing at the time. I've taken the job and I work for their parks and garden services so that's been great.

Natalia: And our next visit to the council will be very exciting indeed, we're going to the registrar's office, we're expecting our second baby and we will need to register the birth, erm… so we're going there. Yes Ithink council staff has always been very nice and helpful to us yeah,

Iain: They've certainly been really good for us.