Independent East

Independent East are an informal alliance of 5 community-focused housing associations in the East of England – Broadland, Freebridge Community Housing, Havebury Housing Partnership, Orwell Housing and Saffron Housing Trust.

We have come together to form a new informal alliance to support each other in delivering better services to their tenants and local communities. We aim to share knowledge, experience and good practice, and creating a collective lobbying voice for social housing in the region.

The group describes itself as being “made up of independently minded, and individually sustainable, housing associations with similar and complementary values and business objectives based in Norfolk and Suffolk, which are willing to share knowledge and experience; to support each other in the delivery of our individual corporate strategies; and to explore opportunities to work better together.”

The 5 organisations will establish a number of operational senior management forums to explore the potential for common approaches – although we will continue to operate independently of each other.

This is an exciting opportunity to support our Independent East partners so we can all continue to improve our services to tenants, and lobby for more social housing in our region.”

Michael Newey, Chief Executive

We are very much looking forward to collaborating with our Independent East Partners over the coming months and years. We will be working together on new projects, sharing ideas and best practices, and supporting each other to have the biggest possible impact on the communities we serve while driving innovation and change within the housing industry.

Wendy Evans-Hendrick, Chief Executive of Orwell Housing Association

Independent East’s #flourish campaign, launched in 2022, is designed to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in our workplaces and communities. It encourages staff and tenants to show their support by signing the #flourish pledge.

In January 2022, Independent East partnered with Your Own Place CIC. The East-Anglian based social enterprise delivered their successful TILS+ workshops to tenants of Broadland, Orwell and Freebridge housing associations. The training was designed to help more people into employment, reduce rent arrears and reduce potential future evictions.