Broadland Housing Group

Homes, community & support since 1963

suffolk

Housing conference focuses on the importance of listening to tenants

Housing conference focuses on the importance of listening to tenants

The first Independent East conference was held near Norwich in November 2022. More than 100 tenants, board members and staff attended from five housing associations based in Norfolk and Suffolk. The conference focused on what lies in store for social housing in 2023 and the important role of tenants.

Independent East Conference November 2022, delegates discussing in group around a table
Independent East Conference November 2022,3 delegates chatting at table
Independent East Conference November 2022, speaker Kate Dodsworth from Regulator of Social Housing
Independent East Conference, November 2022

There were keynote speeches from housing experts Hilary Burkitt, Director of Housing at IFF Research; Kathryn Eyre, Quality, Engagement & Development Director of the Housing Ombudsman; and Kate Dodsworth, Director of Consumer Regulation for the Regulator of Social Housing. The programme also included table discussions and opportunities for questions.

Creative collaboration

In their discussions, the participants focused on creative collaboration as a key solution to the challenges faced by housing associations. They discussed how these challenges might be alleviated by really listening to tenants and putting them at the heart of decisions in the difficult year(s) ahead.

I found the keynote speeches informative, positive and thought-provoking. The whole conference was uplifting and well attended by tenants. It shows a growing interest in how attitudes to social housing and engaging with our landlords are changing.

Jane, a Broadland tenant who participated

It’s important for the sector to come together and think deeply about the challenges they are facing at the moment in such unprecedented times. The takeaway from today is a real sense that everyone is up for the challenge that we’re facing. Despite the great difficulties for housing associations, for tenants, everyone is up for thinking about how they are going to address these challenges and to make sure we are doing our very best for all of our tenants.

Hilary Burkitt, Director of Housing IFF Research

The event was organised by Independent East, an informal alliance of five community‐focused housing associations in the East of England – Broadland Housing, Freebridge Community Housing, Havebury Housing Partnership, Saffron Housing Trust, and Orwell Housing Association.

Independent East will continue to work collaboratively together and with tenants to address common issues, sharing ideas and best practice to continually improve services and better the lives of their customers.

CEOs of Independent East housing associations, November 2022
The CEOs of the five Independent East housing associations: from left to right: James Francis (Saffron); Michael Newey (Broadland); Anita Jones (Freebridge); Andrew Smith (Havebury); Wendy Evans-Hendrick (Orwell)

Samford Court tenants plant Jubilee rose

Samford Court tenants plant Jubilee rose

Tenants at our Samford Court sheltered housing scheme have planted a ‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose in the communal garden to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Tenants plant rose at Samford Court to celebrate Queen's Jubilee

As part of the celebrations, tenants enjoyed a special cream tea provided by the Rural Coffee Caravan, which regularly visits the scheme at Worlingham, near Beccles.

Broadland tenant Colin Probert and Rural Coffee Caravan community engagement officer Annette Dunning planted the rose, just outside the scheme’s communal lounge.

Coming together to celebrate

The event was the first time that all the tenants had come together since lockdown. Scheme Manager Dawn Lambert called the gathering a “big step forward”.

The pandemic and lockdown has been such a difficult time for our tenants, as at many sheltered schemes, so it was lovely for them finally to be able to come together in the sunshine to celebrate the Jubilee.

With a beautiful rose bush planted as a lasting memento of the occasion, this has been the perfect way to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

The Queen Elizabeth rose, which is a pale pink colour, was supplied by Barnby Garden Centre in Beccles.

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.

MORhomes plc logo

Supporting #Flourish for inclusivity

Supporting #Flourish for inclusivity

Broadland is supporting #Flourish, a new campaign by Independent East to promote equality, diversity and inclusion in our workplaces and communities. Independent East is an informal alliance of 5 community-focused housing associations in the East of England.

#Flourish logo - the Independent East campaign to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity

#Flourish is designed to raise awareness of inclusivity and create an environment where everyone can be themselves, grow and flourish. The campaign is based on the idea that just as every plant needs a different environment, treatment and conditions to thrive, so do we as individuals.

Over the coming months, Independent East members will work collaboratively to raise awareness about the importance of inclusion through surveys, training and events. Each organisation will also commit to scrutinise their internal processes to see how they could be improved.

We are very excited to be part of this initiative with Independent East, growing our already strong programme of EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] activities. Our strong commitment reflects that of the other members of Independent East and we look forward to working together to bring even more opportunities to our staff team.

Michael Newey, Chief Executive, Broadland Housing Association

We are all really passionate about this work. We want our workplaces and our communities to be totally inclusive places, that accept everyone for who they are with no judgement and provide an environment where they can be free to be who they want to. We know that there are so many benefits to having a happy workforce, so why wouldn’t you put in place the things needed to enable that to happen?”

Catherine Hodds, Director of People & Culture at Saffron

We spend so much of our adult lives at work; it seems contradictory that many people are worried about being themselves when they are there. While it’s important to remain professional, employees that feel comfortable being themselves are likely to be happier and more productive. This, in turn, influences the service that we can provide to our customers and the experience they will have when they interact with us.

By working in partnership with our Independent East partners, we hope this campaign will have a positive effect on all our customers across the East of England.

Wendy Evans-Hendrick, Chief Executive, Orwell Housing Association

New alliance aims to improve services for tenants

CEOs of Norfolk and Suffolk social housing providers in Independent East
Top row: Michael Newey (Broadland), Andrew Smith (Havebury)
Front row: Anita Jones (Freebridge), James Francis (Saffron), Wendy Evans-Hendrick (Orwell)
Logos of 5 local housing associations in Independent East

Broadland Housing has joined 4 other social housing providers in Norfolk and Suffolk to form a new informal alliance, Independent East.

Broadland has agreed to share knowledge, experience and good practice with partners Freebridge Community Housing, Havebury Housing Partnership, Orwell Housing and Saffron Housing Trust.

The aim is to support each other in delivering better services to our tenants and local communities. The new alliance will also create a collective lobbying voice for social housing in the region.

Independent East describes itself as:

…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.

Independent East manifesto

The 5 organisations will create senior management forums to explore the potential for common approaches. However, each housing association will continue to operate independently of the others.

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.

This ambitious partnership fits well with our long-term customer-focused objectives, and we are proud to be a part of it.”

Wendy Evans-Hendrick, CEO, Orwell Housing Association

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