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Progress Housing Group, Oakmere Homes and South Lakeland District Council celebrate completion of affordable new homes for local families in Kendal

Progress Housing Group has today celebrated the handover of ten affordable apartments for rent with an opening ceremony officiated by Councillor Brook, the Deputy Leader and Housing and Innovation Portfolio Holder at South Lakeland District Council (SLDC).

The one and two-bedroom rental apartments are located on the new Strawberry Fields development in Kendal, South Lakeland, Cumbria. 49 units have been acquired by the Group from a total of 148 new family homes being built at the site by local housing developer Oakmere Homes.

Residents in Seahouses, Northumberland, have marked a momentous occasion and a new chapter for local affordable housing tenants as they move into their newly-built Bernicia homes.
Bernicia, a leading social housing provider in the North East, has handed over the keys to nine new homes, including six bungalows which replace old and poorly insulated wooden houses in James Street. Three new two-bedroomed homes have also been built in the town’s Stone Close. 
Construction of the properties started in May 2019 and was completed by Bernicia’s in-house build team.  One of the first tenants to receive the keys is Ann Athey.  
Ann said: “I’m overjoyed that moving day is nearly here. My new home has everything where I need it and it’s much more accessible than where I live now.  Getting a new house built can seem like a daunting thing to do but Bernicia has provided a brilliant service and been really supportive, making the whole process really easy. I just can’t wait to get settled in.”

A further £24m is being injected immediately into building more new affordable homes in Wales, Housing Minister, Julie James has announced today.

The additional funding for housing will help accelerate the Welsh Government’s programme of providing 20,000 more affordable homes across Wales by 2021, by giving an immediate funding boost to shovel-ready schemes across the country.

The Minister unveiled today that 13,143 of the 20,000 new homes the Welsh Government promised by 2021 have already been delivered (up to end of March 2019). This includes 2,592 affordable housing units delivered across Wales in 2018/19, 12% higher than 2017/18 and the highest annual total to date.

Dan Craven, Head of Sales at Hyperoptic, discusses how it's part of the housing officer role to help improve digital skills within communities…

It is estimated that 11.3 million adults in the UK are digitally excluded and 37% of these people – some four million – live in social housing. It’s a high number and has many negative consequences for society not least because most of the best deals for utilities and shopping are now online and digitally excluded people can miss out on some £456 of online savings per year compared with more digitally savvy counterparts.

Whilst the availability of accessible and affordable property technology products soars in an increasingly paperless world, the need for improving processes couldn’t be greater. Stakeholders in the property world are moving on from traditional methods, the transition includes moving away from Excel sheets and home-built DIY management processes to cloud-based software that is up to 2020 standards. 

In order to improve efficiency within housing management, the uphill daily battle against outdated processes must be eradicated. The implementation of software is a great way to improve productivity and service delivery. 

Digital transformation can seem overwhelming, but the good news is that new software can be very cost effective in relation to the value gained. Property management software will enable you to move away from inefficient and time-consuming methods and towards more automated and streamlined processes. 

The current housing crisis wasn’t created by some ‘housing crisis god in the sky’. It didn’t just happen by chance. Government created this crisis. They made it happen. Nobody else.
Yes, as a society the industry and businesses respond to government policies and there is no doubt that many have added to the crisis, but the simple fact remains that successive weak governments, poor housing government policies and ineffective housing ministers have created, a ‘broken housing system’.

A new financial borrowing vehicle created by housing associations for housing associations has funded 2,233 new homes across England and Wales in the last year according to its Social Impact Reportreleased today (6 February 2020).
 
MORhomes, owned and created by housing associations, lent its first nine borrowers a total of £260m which is being used to fund new homes in 36 local authorities in England and Wales. The homes are for a range of tenures including 1,206 for social and affordable rent, 536 for shared ownership and 31 designed for people with support needs to be more independent.