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Michael Newey, Group Chief Executive, told our Annual General Meeting in September that Broadland needs to continue “stretching itself” if we are to help tackle the UK’s “appalling” homelessness problem.

Broadland completed 67 new homes in the year to March 2019, and another 259 are under construction. Michael said:

Far too many people don’t have homes in this country.  According to Shelter there are 268,000 homeless people in England, and that includes a terrifying number of children. We are in an appalling situation. At the end of the day the solution to homelessness is bricks and mortar, and that’s why we have to stretch ourselves to build more.

Broadland’s Annual Review shows outlines plans to deliver 291 new homes in the current financial year, with a further 172 in 2020-21, and 147 in 2021-22.  We allocated 476 homes in 2018-19, of which 75 were let to homeless people, and further 131 to older people.

As part of Broadland’s pledge to tackle homelessness, we have signed up to the national Homes for Cathy initiative. We have made 9 clear commitments, including introducing flexibility into the way we allocate homes, and meeting the needs of vulnerable tenant groups.

Michael also told the meeting about the importance of the work of our Tenancy Support team, which helps tenants who are at risk of losing their homes. He said:

The team has supported nearly 400 tenants over the last year.  As a result of their work with those tenants, they have managed to bring in for those families a further £322,000 worth of benefits that they weren’t getting beforehand, either by challenging incorrect DWP decisions or securing benefits that tenants were entitled to.

Looking to the future, Michael outlined our new corporate strategy, 2019-23. Going forward, we have strengthened our commitments on tackling homelessness, renewed our focus on involving tenants in shaping the future of our organisation.

Broadland tenants got a chance yesterday to do some construction themselves – with a summer sandcastle building competition on Gorleston beach.

We provided the buckets, spades and miniature flags – so tenants just needed to bring their imagination and be willing to get digging on Gorleston’s pristine sandy beach.

Brian and Angela built the winning sandcastle, and received a voucher for Great Yarmouth’s Sea Life Centre.

The top children’s sandcastle was built by siblings Rhys, Sophia and Tobey Jones, who live in Gorleston.

Paula Strachan, Corporate Communications Manager, said:

It’s so important that we keep up a dialogue with our residents, so that they can have a real say in the way that the association is run, and we know the issues which are important to them.

Brooks Green site at Harford, just south of Norwich, celebrated its 10th birthday recently. The scheme was created in 2009 and resulted from an innovative partnership between South Norfolk Council and Broadland Housing Group – the first development of its kind in the UK.

The site has 8 caravan pitches, each with an attached building with dining, bathroom and toilet facilities.  Families rent their pitches from Broadland the same way as regular affordable housing.

To mark the 10th anniversary of the site, Broadland hosted a BBQ and put on children’s activities for tenants and their families. 

Betsy Mitchell has lived at Brooks Green since it opened, and she has seen 12 of her 15 grandchildren born there. Betsy said the scheme had transformed the lives of the families living there:

I reckon this is one of the best sites that has been built. I had lived on a site when I was younger, and the facilities were tiny and very basic; here we have got everything you would have in a house, except the bedrooms.

When they first showed me the plans, I was amazed.  In fact, I never thought it would happen.  It has massively improved life for the kids, for us all.

Joining the celebrations was Broadland Housing Group chief executive Michael Newey. He said:

Our job is to create places where people can create communities.  The Gypsy and Traveller community is often misunderstood, but we refuse to accept that any single group should be second-class citizens.

The idea that families are constantly being moved on, even when they include people with terminal illnesses, as well as children of all ages – that denies them the ability to be part of the kind of community which most of us take for granted.

It took an innovative mindset and a lot of hard work to create this – but looking at it ten years later, it was very definitely worth it.  It has become a proper community.

There aren’t anywhere near enough plots for the Gypsy and Traveller community.  Our job is to solve housing need; so when we can, we will.

Broadland Housing Group executive development director Andrew Savage, who played a major role in bringing Brooks Green into existence ten years ago, was also at the celebration:

10 years ago, no one knew what type of Gypsy and Traveller site would be successful.  Too many organisations don’t spend the time finding out how these communities work.

But if you listen, as we did, and you give people a decent place to live, then when you come back 10 years later, you will find a vibrant and successful community.

The Brooks Green site was developed with funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government, while the land is leased from a local famer.  Following cuts to central government funds for the development of authorised Gypsy and Traveller sites, few similar projects have been completed across the UK in the past decade.