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A customer advisor from Haverhill's biggest housing provider Havebury Housing, who runs free computer courses for tenants, has become the East of England’s Digital Hero, winning £5,000 in the process.

Lauren Porter received the most public votes in the fifth Talk Talk Digital Heroes awards, which celebrate people who use digital technology to benefit their communities.

Lauren is responsible for the regular computer basics courses run by the Havebury on topics including online safety, word processing and social media.

These courses will now be enhanced with the £5,000 prize money, which will be presented at the House of Commons next Wednesday.

Lauren is also in the running for the national award alongside the 11 other regional winners, with a grand prize of £10,000 up for grabs.

The national winner will be chosen by a panel that includes dotcom entrepreneur and UK digital champion Martha Lane Fox and TalkTalk chairman Sir Charles Dunstone.

Lauren said: “I am delighted to have won this award. Havebury is committed to helping tenants increase their digital skills to enhance both work and life opportunities and I really enjoy helping our tenants in this way.

"I am excited to start planning how we will use this award to increase our tenant training programme and would like to thank everyone who voted for me.”

The one-to-one sessions run by Lauren are delivered at a pace which suits the tenants, who are often older people who may not have undertaken training for a number of years.

Havebury chief executive Karen Mayhew said: “This award is testament to the hard work Lauren puts in to run these excellent courses. Our tenants really do benefit from them and we are delighted that we will be able to use the prize money to expand our offering even further.

“I would really encourage our tenants to take the opportunity to learn about technology through one of our courses, which are delivered in a friendly, accessible way.”