Tenants of Watford Community Housing Trust have been promised they will have democratic representation again after their elected residents’ panel was suspended.

Diane Lee, the chairman of the housing association, made the pledge after the meetings of residents’ Gateway Committee were put on ice pending a revamp of the struggling panel.

The committee is the voice of the tenants which interacts with the trust’s decision-making board.

It was suspended last month because struggled to find enough members and was said to diminishing in its effectiveness as a representative body.

Chris Blackett, the former head of the Gateway Committee, said she was unhappy with how abruptly it had been suspended - with members being informed by letter that there would be no more meetings until a review had been carried out.

She also said she felt the trust’s members should have had a say in the decision.

“It was a decision of the board and the following day they sent the Gateway Committee members letters saying the meetings had been suspended. It happened very quickly.

“We are an elected committee and I felt the membership should have been involved in any decision to suspend it.”

Mrs Blackett added that she wanted to see the committee back up and running as soon as possible.

When the committee was first set up four years ago it had space for 30 elected members.

However that was deemed unworkable as it was difficult find enough volunteers and the group was too large to work effectively.

The committee was then cut down to 20 members but still struggled to find enough volunteer and the situation became so difficult that there were no elections held this year due to the shortage of candidates.

Diane Lee, the chairman of the trust’s governing board, said the board took the decision to suspend the committee in tandem with it.

She said the trust had drawn up a number of options to improve the committee and would be looking at them early next month.

Mrs Lee said she anticipated that the new committee would be up and running by the spring.

She added: “Democracy is important to the committee and the Gateway will be elected, but it will probably be very different to what it was before.

“We are all committed to do the best thing for our tenants and members.

“We [the board] felt change was necessary and the committee felt change was necessary so we are doing it together.”

Another reason why the trust has keen to see the committee reinstated soon is that having an active tenants’ forum was one of the five-year promises it made when it took over the council’s housing stock in 2007.

All those promises have to be fulfilled by September next year and Mrs Lee said she was confident the trust would hit all its targets.