STAFF at a North East estate agency are celebrating after being commended as one of the best in the country.

The team at Venture Properties, which has branches across Country Durham, were recently announced as the winner of the British Property Awards 2020-2021 gold accolade for ‘Letting Agent in Darlington’.

Venture Properties director Michael O’Connor said: “Across all of our offices, our staff work tirelessly to provide an excellent service to landlords and tenants which winning this award demonstrates.

“The judges were particularly impressed by the speed and efficiency of our responses to email enquiries, the way staff spoke on the phone, our team’s knowledge of the properties they currently had to rent and on current legislation.”

Judges of the British Property Awards, which assess agencies across the UK against 25 key criteria, undertake a series of mystery shopping exercises, allowing them a customer-eye view of each business and its service.

Mr O'Connor added: “We were delighted when we got the call to say that our Darlington Lettings team had been awarded gold and outperformed our competitors. The great thing is that different members of the lettings team were all involved, showing that everyone is on the same page.

“The award is a great morale-booster for staff. Darlington lettings, especially, have excelled in the rental market in the town for many years now and we always try to keep improving; this shows the team that this pays off.”

Lettings manager Matthew Laverick-Elliott added: “We are delighted to have won this award.

"The lettings team here at Darlington work extremely hard and always go above and beyond what is asked of them.”

The latest award is the third that Venture Properties has received in recent years, with the Durham team having also been named the best letting agent in the city in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

For more information on Venture’s lettings services, visit www.venturepropertiesuk.com.