Over the past year we have taken time to review our business plan in the light of the UK’s political and economic situation and the impact this is having on you. Working with you and listening to what you tell us is important to you, we have identified three areas that we want to focus on over the next four years and these are:
The right relationship – We want to establish a relationship with each of you so we can make the most of our resources and you can get the most from our homes and services.
The right home – We want to ensure that each of you has the right home: one that meets your needs, which you can afford and that can be a springboard from which you can achieve your aspirations.
Increasing the supply of new homes – We will work to increase the supply of new homes. They will be the right size in the right locations to meet and support the aspirations of new customers.
Over the next few years we will act on this plan, investing in a number of areas:
Investing in our relationship – Our commitment to the Bromford Deal remains at the heart of our business and the key to this is building strong relationships with you. There’s a lot in this review about the introduction of neighbourhood coaches and their role in helping you to make the most of your talents, whilst helping to connect communities – we’ll be investing an additional £3.5m to make this a reality for all the communities we work in, for both rented and shared ownership customers.
Investing in land – We’ll continue to focus on building more new affordable homes, enabling more people than ever to get on the housing ladder. We’ve earmarked around £20m to buy land for new homes in the places where they are most needed.
Investing in new homes – We plan to deliver around 3,100 new homes over the next five years. We’ll focus on building the homes that otherwise wouldn’t be built across the communities where we currently operate.
Investing in existing homes – We’ll be kicking off a five-year investment plan for existing homes that will focus on ensuring your home is right for you. Over the five years we will be investing over £100k in replacing old kitchens, bathrooms, roofs, windows etc. And this includes an increased spend of £13m on ways to improve the heating in your home – making it easier to keep warm, saving you money and really helping towards your wellbeing.
Investing in services – We know that Government reforms to welfare benefits continue to hit many of you hard and with the ongoing roll out of Universal Credit this isn’t going to get any easier. Our neighbourhood coaches will go some way to helping you navigate these challenges, but we will also continue to invest in FCA accredited money advisors who can help you get to a place where you’re in control of your finances, whilst constantly looking for new and innovative ways to make your life a little easier.
24
Much of this review concentrates on how we’ve performed for you over the past year, but what about the year ahead? What are the priorities we’ll be working on and where will we be making investments to improve things for you? Here, Nick Cummins – a director at Bromford, summarises some of the key things we’ll be focusing on as we look forward into 2017.
The year ahead.