Building homes
Development
As we enter the third year of our current five-year Development Strategy, we remain committed to developing new homes for those who need them most.
These homes will be for affordable rent and shared ownership, along with specialist supported living accommodation and independent living homes for older people.
Our objective remains to deliver 1,000 affordable homes by March 2024, but we aspire to create even more than this.
We have made a good start. During the last year, we started 101 homes and completed 121 homes - 61 for affordable rent, 55 for shared ownership, and five supported living properties.
Our investment in these completed homes was
£18.3 million, with £2.6 million coming from government grant.
Last year, we started 101 homes and completed 121 homes - 61 for affordable rent, 55 for shared ownership, and five supported living properties.
Our investment in these completed homes was £18.3 million.
We already have a significant number of units under construction. Our shift in approach to more extensive, mixed-tenure developments with an increased focus on a land-led strategy is coming to fruition. We seek to deliver an increased proportion of our future supported living developments as new build land-led schemes.
We have secured land for future development and are progressing further site acquisition opportunities with selected specialist developers to deliver sites they already control for affordable housing. We will continue to deliver homes with commercial housebuilders through section 106 planning gain. However, this will form a smaller proportion of our development programme in the future. We are exploring new build extra care opportunities and are working closely with commissioners concerning supported living delivery.
Having a variety of delivery routes for development schemes and partnership working is building a significant future development pipeline to provide increased assurance around successfully delivering our Development Strategy.
As an organisation we have committed to Harry’s Pledge to create fully accessible homes, community spaces and workspaces.
We completed our first Concert Living development for sale in Bamber Bridge, consisting of 12 homes.
Concert Living
In April 2020, our new private housebuilding company, Concert Living, completed its first development for sale in Bamber Bridge, near Preston. All 12 homes have been reserved or sold, and the scheme generated a gross profit in line with the original forecast.
While delayed due to the pandemic, Concert Living has now commenced construction at two new sites at Woodland View, Wrea Green and Pendleton Meadows, Clitheroe. These sites total 42 homes ranging from two-bedroom bungalows to five-bedroom detached family homes. Twelve of the properties on these sites are affordable homes.
Concert Living has also recently commenced a third site for 30 homes, nine of which are affordable, at Scholars’ Chase, Inskip. Unlike Woodland View and Pendleton Meadows, this site will be developed directly by the Concert Living Team, which has grown over the past six months to include a Commercial Manager, a Contracts Manager, and a Land and Sales Manager.
A further site for 44 homes at Church View, Weeton, is also forecast to commence in the autumn and will comprise 17 open market units and 27 affordable homes for the Group.
We have commenced with three new Concert Living sites totalling 72 homes, 21 of which are affordable homes.
During the year, the Progress Living Team managed 5,523 new tenancies.
Progress Living
Progress Living provides homes for hospital key workers to rent at three hospital sites in Lincoln, Boston, and Grantham. This purpose-built accommodation offers a vital service for the NHS Trust in Lincolnshire. It also increases the availability of high-quality rental accommodation for other key workers living in the community. During the year, we have been continuing work to improve the rental process for applicants by automating our systems and reviewing our procedures.
We have worked very closely with the NHS Trust to ensure accommodation has been available for Covid-19 clinical employees. The pandemic has been challenging for the team, but they have provided an excellent service in difficult circumstances.
In 2020/21, overall occupancy for Progress Living accommodation for both Trust and non-Trust occupants was 81.9%
During the year, the Progress Living Team managed 5,523 new tenancies. We have allocated additional accommodation for United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) to use as on-call rooms for clinical employees, increased our housekeeping to make sure accommodation remained safe for tenants, provided accommodation for clinical employees who needed to keep themselves safe from Covid-19 and made regular welfare calls to tenants who had let us know they were self-isolating to make sure that they were okay. Claire Hall, ULHT's Associate Director of Strategic Business Planning Estates and Facilities, has thanked Progress Living for the team's incredible response and work to support ULHT to continue providing their vital services.
In 2020/21, overall occupancy for Progress Living accommodation for both Trust and non-Trust occupants was 81.9%. Our target is 91.2%. We will again be working to meet this target during the forthcoming year whilst providing a high-quality customer experience for tenants.
Meet Dominique
I'm a third-year nursing student at Pilgrim Hospital Boston.
I will often work a 12-hour shift at the hospital, and living over an hour's car journey away, the commute was starting to get too much. Including getting up and dressed and travelling to work and back, my days would have been 17 hours long. So I felt it was safer and easier for me to stay at Progress Living's onsite accommodation. I decided I'd be more rested for my shifts, especially when working during the current pandemic.
The team at Progress Living have really looked after me. They've been fabulous; no issue is too big or small. They have never made me feel that I was a bother as they are always friendly and supportive of my questions around payments and availability.
The caretakers are so helpful too. Whenever I've had issues with things needing fixing in the apartment or some noise disturbance from loud music by a neighbour, they were quick to assist me.
During the pandemic, I know it's been a lonely time for many people, but it's been great for me to be with people, like myself, who are working in the hospital and then returning home on an evening. It's felt like a community, and we've all been able to support each other.
The Group has currently carried out stock condition visits to 94% of our assets.
Our approach to asset management
The Group has an Asset Management Strategy that provides a framework for the proactive management of stock.
From the last assessment carried out in 2020, we know:
- General needs properties are performing above the North West average - our average net present value (NPV) is £19,525 compared to the North West average of £15,630
- Independent living properties on average produce a positive NPV - our average NPV is £14,213
- Supported living properties on average produce a high NPV figure - our average NPV is £83,692
These NPV calculations are reviewed every year as part of the Asset Performance Evaluation (APE) model and updated to the board as part of the annual report.
Linking to our long-term plans
Understanding our assets and their return is crucial to update the Group's long-term maintenance and financial plans over the next 30 years.
Stock condition inspections are carried out throughout the year using internal surveyors. The Group has currently carried out stock condition visits to 94% of our assets.
The data from these inspections directly feeds into the APE model that is refreshed annually. The Housing Quality Network (HQN) independently reviewed our stock condition data and found them fit for purpose. They confirmed that the Group had sufficient resources to meet our long-term maintenance plan. These results were reported to the board, and we plan to carry out a further independent review of our data and assumptions in 2022.
We invested £26.5 million during 2020/21 to improve our customers' homes.
Investing in homes
Covid-19 meant that our Planned Works Team spent 23 weeks in lockdown, and we delivered emergency-only repairs for the first two months of the year. Despite this, we still invested a massive £26.5 million during 2020/21 to improve our customers' homes. This investment included a total of 1,173 improvements delivered against our target of 1,413, which is a fantastic achievement.
We spent almost £6 million on our improvement programme, fitting over 170 new kitchens, over 220 bathrooms, and over 400 new boilers. We also delivered improvement works to include new roofs, windows, and doors.
We invested a further £9.6 million keeping our customers safe in their homes, undertaking safety checks, and delivering planned work. Last year, we carried out a total of 6,636 gas safety tests, 1,480 electrical tests, 806 fire audits, 660 asbestos checks, and 173 water hygiene checks. We spent a further £1.5 million on servicing safety equipment, such as fire alarms and equipment.
We invested £9.5 million in our repairs service. Our in-house team and partner contractors carried out over 40,000 repairs and undertook re-improvement work to almost 500 empty homes.
We are delighted with the results of our customer surveys, too, which have seen improvements in satisfaction.
Responsive repairs
2020/21 was an exceptionally busy year for the Property Services Team. We continued to deliver our services throughout the pandemic whilst also ensuring we followed strict government guidelines, which meant we had several periods in lockdown. Despite this, we have achieved most of our targets and even improved our performance in some areas.
We aim to achieve over 90.0% satisfaction across all areas in 2021/22.
Despite the restrictions of Covid-19, our Responsive Repairs Team ended the year having carried out just 1% fewer repairs than last year, even though for the first two months of the year, we could only undertake emergency repairs. The team also increased the number of appointments we attended on time to 93.3% (up from 92.7% last year), with a further 94.9% repairs completed within priority timescales (up from 94.8% last year), a fantastic achievement.
We are delighted with the results of our customer surveys, too, which have seen improvements in satisfaction. These include increasing 'right-first-time’ satisfaction from 83.7% to 84.2% and improving communication from 89.6% to 90.2%. We aim to achieve over 90.0% satisfaction across all areas in 2021/22
We carried out 6,636 gas safety tests, 1,480 electrical tests, 806 fire audits, 660 asbestos checks, and 173 water hygiene checks.
Healthy and safe homes
We have continued to deliver property-related health and safety compliance checks to our customers' homes, communal areas, offices, and community centres, keeping our customers and colleagues safe.
We have also undertaken a full review of our compliance data, policies, and procedures, resulting in developing and implementing new procedures. We have a new Compliance Team in place and have made significant progress through our roadmap of improvements. These improvements will help ensure that we are a leading organisation in property compliance and safety.
As in previous years, we supported the national Gas Safety Week and this year, we supported the first National Social Housing Safety & Compliance Week with a series of pledges.