Broadland Housing Group

Homes, community & support since 1963

social housing

Tenants raise £900 for Ukraine

Tenants raise £900 for Ukraine

Generous tenants at our Woodcote sheltered housing scheme have raised £900 for the Red Cross. The fundraising will help support children and elderly people caught up in the conflict in Ukraine.

The 60 residents at Woodcote in Hethersett held a special coffee morning, where they watched 2 films about the background to the conflict. One film was presented by Red Cross workers on the ground in Ukraine.

Stephen Baxter, scheme manager (far right in picture), said:

Lots of residents had been asking what they could do to help. They were moved by images of families and elderly people suffering terrible conditions as a result of the conflict,

Also, one of the carers who works here has a Ukrainian husband, so that has also brought the crisis closer to home.

Woodcote tenant Richard Headicar said:

The suffering of elderly people and children and families caught up in what is going on in Ukraine has tugged on all of our heartstrings.  We all wanted to do what we could to help mitigate their plight.

Fellow tenant Molly Allison added:

I have cried every morning when I see what is happening on the television.

Humanitarian aid

Red Cross teams are working both in Ukraine itself and in neighbouring countries, where they are providing humanitarian aid to the influx of refugees. This includes food and water, first aid and medicines, warm clothes and shelter.

The charity has distributed over 90,000 food and hygiene parcels and provided food, warm clothes and other aid to around 7,000 people sheltering in metro stations in Kyiv. It has also delivered first aid training to over 12,000 people in Ukraine.

World-leading construction industry body visits Canary Quay, Norwich

CIOB visit to Canary Quay, Norwich, 17 March 2022

World-leading construction industry body visits Canary Quay

Caroline Gumble with Andrew Savage, Executive Development Director, and James Carter of RG Carter

We recently welcomed Caroline Gumble, Chief Executive Officer at the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), to Canary Quay. The CIOB is the world’s largest and most influential professional body for construction management and leadership.

Now in its final phase, Canary Quay will provide 323 mixed tenure apartments when complete.

Caroline noted the close working and collaborative approach between Broadland Housing Association, Broadland St Benedicts and our construction partners RG Carter. The Canary Quay project has turned an industrial warehouse and car park into a new residential area in the heart of the city.

Caroline was in Norwich promoting the launch of the new CIOB equality, diversity and inclusion charter for the construction industry.

Broadland celebrates Sustainable Housing Label success

Broadland Housing has received a Sustainable Housing Label from international consultants Ritterwald. We are the first medium-sized housing association to receive the award, which recognises our strong ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance.

The Sustainable Housing Label looks at more than 40 ESG criteria that are aligned to the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing, and scrutinises sustainability across the operations of an organisation.

Broadland scored highly on tenant engagement, “ethical” considerations, and “high-quality sustainable housing, staff and tenant wellbeing and tenant representation”.

  • Broadland Housing Association Chief Executive Michael Newey receiving the SUstainable Housing Label award from Austen Reid of Ritterwald
    Michael Newey, Chief Executive (right) receiving the award from Austen Reid, UK Director, Ritterwald
  • Ritterwald Sustainable Housing Label, achieved by Broadland Housing Group in December 2021

High score for tenant engagement

Iain Grieve, Executive Finance Director, said:

There were some really positive things from the label application process around how we engage with our tenants, and around the communities and the surroundings of our development schemes, how we obtain feedback from our staff, and how we focus on staff wellbeing.

There’s a lot of focus on the environmental side and net zero decarbonisation, but actually it’s the wider view of ESG and sustainability that funders are interested in.

Ritterwald said that Broadland can “lead the way for other medium-sized social landlords looking to obtain an externally verified ESG accreditation”:

…A sustainability strategy has to have a strong element of engagement with residents, and Broadland was able to demonstrate it.

Austen Reid, UK director, Ritterwald

Benefits for the whole housing sector

Iain said the Sustainable Housing Label has knock-on effects for the whole sector if more housing associations apply:

There’s no need to be intimidated by something like an ESG accreditation, despite the fact that most of the holders are larger housing associations with more resources.

What we found is that, going through the process, it looks at our operation and the things we would do on a day-to-day basis anyway. It’s allowed us to benchmark our performance against other housing associations, which has been another benefit.

Ultimately, we’re all trying to achieve the same thing. It’s a really good thing to do, I think, to help us move forward together as a sector.

Read the full article in Social Housing magazine

Elm Road, Thetford

With our partners Breckland Council, we are building 5 new homes that will offer dedicated support to rough sleepers from across the Breckland district.

The development includes 4 x 2-storey, 1-bedroom terraced homes and an adjoining bungalow, with a shared garden space.

The new homes will be completed later this year in Thetford. Former rough sleepers will be supported to transition into longer-term accommodation. Individuals will also get help to access education, employment opportunities and healthcare. 

The homes are being developed in the grounds of Elm House, formerly called Elm Road Community Centre. Breckland Council is currently converting the centre itself into emergency accommodation units. 

Broadland secures £15 million for new affordable homes through sustainable bonds

Working with MORhomes, Broadland has raised funding for new development through the issuance of £15 million of sustainable bonds.

A sustainable business

To be eligible for this funding, we had to demonstrate that we are a sustainable business and fulfil certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.

We will use the proceeds generated from the bond issuance to fund new affordable homes.

Competitively priced, long-term funding

MORhomes is 100% owned and controlled by housing associations. It is constituted as a PLC and applies the highest standards of corporate governance. MORhomes is a unique and innovative borrowing vehicle for the UK social housing sector, raising finance on the bond markets and lending it on to housing associations, who must be shareholders.

At Broadland we are focused on sustainability across all parts of our organisation. Our involvement with MORhomes and their Sustainability Bond has provided us with an opportunity to demonstrate our ESG credentials and obtain competitively priced, long-term funding that will allow us to develop new affordable homes.

Iain Grieve, Executive Finance Director, Broadland Housing

We are proud to have developed a genuinely unique approach to assessing the sustainability impact of our housing association borrowers. Borrowers like Broadland Housing who meet our standards are going above and beyond current requirements and helping meet the Government’s zero carbon target and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We are pleased to be able to demonstrate to investors the excellent sustainability work which they are doing.

Patrick Symington, Chief Executive, MORhomes

It was a pleasure to work with Broadland and MORhomes to deliver this successful and competitively priced long-term funding. This financing will enable Broadland to continue to deliver its development programme and meet the needs of its customers.

Lawrence Gill, Director Corporate Finance, Centrus – advisors to Broadland

For more details about the sustainable bonds issuance, please see the MORhomes’ announcement.

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