Moving forward | Strategic report
Providing the homes people want, where they’re needed
We’re continuing to play our part in tackling the housing crisis, delivering the high-quality homes people want, where they’re needed most and focusing on areas where we’ll have the most impact. In the last 12 months we’ve delivered a record number of new homes to meet a range of housing needs.
A year of progress
New homes delivered in 2021/22
£79.5m
invested in development activity
New homes achieving EPC rating B or above
£13.2m
invested in major works to existing stock
This year, we’ve started to build 848 homes and completed 679 homes. Ranked by Inside Housing’s Biggest Builder’s survey as one of the sector’s leading providers, we invested £79.5 million to deliver these much-needed new homes.
Most of these properties were available for social, affordable or intermediate rent or low-cost ownership options, such as shared ownership or Rent to Home Buy.
Our development progress in the last year ensures that we’re on track to realise our aim of increasing the number of homes we manage year-on-year. This, alongside our appetite for pursuing the right merger and acquisition opportunities when they arise, leaves us well placed to realise our ambition of being able to grow to 35,000 homes by 2025, while remaining locally responsive to our customers and communities.
You can find out more about how we’ve achieved this in the dedicated Growth and Development section of the Longhurst Group website.
Accessibility
We’ve continued to review the house designs of our land-led developments to ensure our homes are as accessible for customers as possible.
Affordable homes
Our level of reinvestment in the provision of new affordable homes has slightly increased to six percent and reflects our £79.5m investment in new homes.
A further £13.2m has been invested in major works to our existing homes.
Investing in existing homes
We’ve continued to invest in our homes to improve their energy efficiency with 94 percent of our homes being EPC D and above, and 63 percent above C. All of our new homes (100 percent) have achieved EPC level B or above.
Stock image posed by model
Case study
Accessible homes
We’ve continued to review the house designs of our land-led developments to ensure our homes are as accessible for customers as possible. One Longhurst Group customer, who has terminal cancer, thanked Longhurst Group for helping ‘make his life easier’ after moving into his new home in early April 2022.
Our development programme
This year, we’ve started to build 848 homes and completed 679 homes. You can find out more about this in the Growth and Development section of the Longhurst Group website.
Building safety
The safety of our existing homes and those that we’re developing remains a key area of focus for the Board and Executive Leadership Team. The profile of our stock doesn’t include any flats or houses with cladding that will need replacing. We only have one scheme with flats over six stories high and this is of a standard brick construction.
We annually review the policy and procedures we have in place around building safety, engaging with our contractors to provide specialist services.
Stock investment
We remain committed to ensuring our existing homes are maintained to a high standard.
Despite the difficulties in progressing with a stock investment programme during a year when we’ve faced so many external challenges, such as the delays to sourcing materials and the sparsity of skilled works encountered due the Coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, we’ve still been able to reinvest £13.2m in major improvement works to our existing properties.
In addition to our exceptional development and sales performance, we’ve been appointed to Homes England’s new £20bn procurement framework.
The new Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) makes it easier for organisations like ours to access land owned by Homes England.
In a further boost, we’ve been appointed to the DPS for both large and small sites, meaning we can bid on a broad range of opportunities. We’re joined on the list by fellow housing associations and major housebuilders as well as national and SME contractors.
We’re developing an active asset management strategy to help us make better informed decisions about how to manage our stock and when to seize opportunities to rationalise our stock.
“When we invest in our properties, we’ll upgrade and future proof them to support people to live independently for as long as possible.”
When we invest in our properties, we’ll upgrade and future proof them to support people to live independently for as long as possible while also combating fuel poverty and reducing our environmental impact.
© Longhurst Group Limited
Longhurst Group Ltd is a charitable housing association registered in England as a community benefit society (Reg. No. 8009) and registered with the Regulator of Social Housing (No. L4277).
Registered Office: 1 Crown Court, Crown Way, Rushden, Northamptonshire NN10 6BS. VAT Reg No. 326 0270 36. A member of the National Housing Federation.