The first phase of major improvement work to thousands of homes across Salford has been completed. Work began in April to revamp almost 400 properties in Ordsall and Weaste, following the transfer of more than 8,300 homes from Salford Council to Salix Homes earlier this year. The project marked the
Almost all housing associations have hit the deadline for submission of their revised business plans to the regulator following the government’s rent reduction announcement. The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) set a deadline of 30 October for associations to provide it with new financial forecast returns (FFRs) to reflect the
Haringey Council is set to renew its arm’s-length management organisation’s contract for a further 10 years. The Labour-led council cabinet on Tuesday is expected to rubber-stamp a proposal to extend the contract of Homes for Haringey for 10 years after the current deal expires on 31 March next year. It
The London property market could be heading for a bubble as soon as 2017, according to academics at Lancaster University. The university’s Housing Observatory report found that despite UK house prices hitting a string of record highs in recent months, there are no signs of “exuberance” – meaning a bubble
Mactaggart & Mickel Group, the award winning Scottish family housebuilder, has published positive results for the year ended 30 April 2015. Group turnover is up 16% to £68 million (2014: £58.5 million) with profits before tax increasing 21% to £9.8 million (2014: £8.1 million). The results maintain its strong performance
The first phase of major improvement work to thousands of homes across Salford has been completed. Work began in April to revamp almost 400 properties in Ordsall and Weaste, following the transfer of more than 8,300 homes from Salford Council to Salix Homes earlier this year. The project marked the start of an ambitious two year investment programme, which will see 2,200 homes undergo £22m of much needed improvements including new kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors. Contractor Emanuel Whittaker has just added the finishing touches to 230 homes on the Tootal Estate in Weaste, while building specialist A Connolly has completed improvements to 166 homes in South Ordsall. South Ordsall tenant and mum-of-six Jolene Knight has had a new kitchen fitted in her home and is thrilled with the work. She said: “I absolutely love my new kitchen and it’s made a big difference for me and my family. I just love spending time in the kitchen, I practically live in there now.” The second phase of improvement work has now begun, which will see essential improvements carried out to a further 250 homes at the Meadowgate estate in Seedley and the Gerald Road estate in Charlestown. Mark Foster, head of investment at Salix Homes, said: “The first phase of our significant investment programme to social housing in Salford has now drawn to a close and we are incredibly proud of the fact that almost 400 families are now enjoying their new and improved homes. “As we continue with our ambitious investment plans for our communities, we are confident that we can create a modern, sustainable and fit-for purpose homes of which we can all be proud.” Over the next five years, Salix Homes will invest £75million in improving homes and communities across Salford to ensure that every property meets the Government’s Decent Homes standard by 2020. John Gallagher, contracts director at Emanuel Whittaker said: “It’s testament to the dedication and hard work of our site team, and that of Salix Homes, that the first phase of the work on the Tootal Estate has been successfully completed, on time and on budget. “Replacing kitchens and bathrooms is quite disruptive for tenants, however, we are delighted to have achieved 100 per cent satisfaction and we are looking forward to replicating that success in phase two.” Simon Harrison, managing director at A Connolly, added: “We’re delighted to have had such a positive impact on the refurbishment of homes on the South Ordsall estate. We will apply the same focus on quality, skills development and service levels for Gerald Road residents that has enabled us to add value and bring enhanced standards of living to the resident of Salix Homes.”
Almost all housing associations have hit the deadline for submission of their revised business plans to the regulator following the government’s rent reduction announcement. The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) set a deadline of 30 October for associations to provide it with new financial forecast returns (FFRs) to reflect the rent cut and other reforms such as the lowering of the benefit cap. A spokesperson for the HCA said: “We have received more than a 99% response and will be reviewing the returns over the coming weeks.” The rent cut – a reduction of 1% a year for 4 years – and cuts to the benefit cap from £26,000 to £20,000 (£23,000 in London) were announced in July’s Budget. In the same month, HCA chair Julian Ashby wrote to chief executives and chairs of the 255 English housing associations that own 1,000 or more homes to ask them for updated financial information. He said the rent and benefits cuts would have “a substantial impact on most associations’ business plans”. In the letter Mr Ashby warned that failure to provide accurate FFR returns “will give rise to cause for regulatory concern”. “It is for you to decide whether and how you will need to reconfigure your business in the light of these changes,” he wrote. “We anticipate that most associations will wish to look at their cost structure and consider areas where it is possible to re-prioritise expenditure.” He also urged associations that felt they could not adapt to the changes to contact the HCA straight away. The HCA has not commented on what will happen with relation to the small number of associations which have not responded. The HCA wanted to check associations understood the scale of the changes in the budget, had remedial plans in place to deal with them, had considered ‘all relevant issues’ and have fully stress tested business plans. In his letter, Mr Ashby said agency would use the revised FFR along with accounts to carry out each organisation’s first stability check.
Haringey Council is set to renew its arm’s-length management organisation’s contract for a further 10 years. The Labour-led council cabinet on Tuesday is expected to rubber-stamp a proposal to extend the contract of Homes for Haringey for 10 years after the current deal expires on 31 March next year. It also agreed to set up a development vehicle to refurbish stock and build new homes. The decisions follow recommendations from a review by a cross-party panel of councillors and tennants. The review recommended the council retains its arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO) and rejected other options, including bringing management in-house or transferring stock to housing associations. The review said Homes for Haringey, which manages more than 20,000 council homes, had shown strong tenant satisfaction ratings, strong tenant involvement and the ability to “move quickly to deliver and can make decisions without the constraints of the lengthy local authority process”. It also said the ALMO has a “significant record of financial savings and efficiencies”. The report said the ALMO had made savings of £3.2m in 2014/15. By contrast, moving management back in-house had “no demonstrable benefit for tenants… based on performance, satisfaction, flexibility or financial reasons”. It said savings from bringing management in-house would not improve the council’s housing revenue account position and that such a move risked a “drop in performance”. A large-scale voluntary transfer to a new housing association was found to be unfeasible without significant debt write-off. The review recommends that the council includes performance targets in the new contract, including a condition that the ALMO reaches top quartile performance by March 2018. It would also be expected to make annual savings. The panel also recommended the council should set up a development vehicle, which could either be wholly-owned or through a joint venture, to attract funding for building new social and affordable housing. The decision to retain Homes for Haringey goes against a recent trend in the scapping of ALMOS. we learned that in June that there has been a net reduction of 31 ALMOs since 2010, with the number of members of the National Federation of ALMOs falling from 70 to 31 during that time.
The London property market could be heading for a bubble as soon as 2017, according to academics at Lancaster University. The university’s Housing Observatory report found that despite UK house prices hitting a string of record highs in recent months, there are no signs of “exuberance” – meaning a bubble of over-priced property at a national level. But the London market, which has been the driving force behind much of the house price growth, is close to entering a bubble-type phase – and this could happen in the next 18 months, it found. Bubbles are created in a property market when houses become substantially over-priced over a period of time. When the bubble bursts, property prices undergo a correction, meaning they tumble in order to match what buyers are willing to pay for them. In such situations, home owners can find themselves trapped in negative equity, meaning their home is worth less than the mortgage debt they have left to pay on it. But some would-be home owners who have previously been struggling to get on the property ladder may find that house prices start to edge within their reach. With London leading the UK market, there could be a risk of a “ripple effect”, whereby the bubble behaviour spreads to the regions surrounding the capital – and from there to the rest of the UK. Land Registry figures show that the average London house price was just short of half a million pounds in September, having surged by 9.6% over the last year to reach £499,997 . Across England and Wales as a whole, the average property value was £186,553 in September. According to a separate house price study run by Nationwide Building Society, average UK property prices reached a record high in cash terms in October, at £196,807. Last week, a “global real estate bubble index” from Swiss bank UBS found that the risk of a property bubble is most distinct in London, followed by Hong Kong. Professor Ivan Paya, of Lancaster University Management School, said: “Boom and bust in housing markets has a major impact on people’s lives. “UK housing prices have reached a new high, surpassing those of 2007, and it’s important we try to anticipate the kind of price crashes that lead to negative equity and hefty, disproportionate mortgages.” Prof Paya said analysis of the housing market in the third quarter of 2015 ” suggests that London is heading towards what we call ‘exuberance’, a bubble of overpriced property, if prices continue to rise at the same rate over the next 18 months. “There is the potential of a ‘ripple’ effect to the Outer London Metropolitan area – also seeing higher than average price rises – and eventually nationally.”
Mactaggart & Mickel Group, the award winning Scottish family housebuilder, has published positive results for the year ended 30 April 2015. Group turnover is up 16% to £68 million (2014: £58.5 million) with profits before tax increasing 21% to £9.8 million (2014: £8.1 million). The results maintain its strong performance from 2014 which saw the Group return to pre-recession profit levels. An ongoing focus on growing income from external markets through each of its divisions has paid dividends with profits increasing across these business units, while the Group’s flagship Homes business continues to deliver robust returns. Operational highlights include: Homes – Homes remains the cornerstone of the business contributing turnover of £48.5m (2014: £44m). Forward sales of 82% have been secured in the current trading year. Timber Systems – Turnover increased to £5.4m (2014: £4.3m) as the division strengthened its management team and improved productivity through further capital investment in its manufacturing facility. Contract wins with new and repeat residential and commercial property clients secured a healthy order book. Contracts – Reduced turnover of £10.4m (2014: £13.3m) as the division completed the retrofit of 225 units at the multi-award winning Commonwealth Games Athletes’ Village. Several ongoing social housing contracts and a focus on growing its external customer base have resulted in a comfortable pipeline of contracts for the current financial year. Commercial Property – An annual profit of £0.7m represents a substantial increase on the previous year (2014: £0.4m) with overall asset value of £5.8m. The Group completed the sale of its first commercial property development at Dalkeith for £2m marking a significant milestone. Lettings – Income totalled £3.4m (2014: £3.3m) and overall asset value of £60m. Underperforming assets were disposed of to fund a reinvestment strategy outwith Scotland. Strategic Land – Investment of £0.8m across the year grew the company’s English landbank to more than 1,310 acres across 20 sites. Three planning applications were submitted in Scotland, for 423 units, and over 1,460 units were secured from greenbelt near Bath, Gloucester and Liverpool. The first English land sale was also settled, to Persimmon Homes at Shavington, Cheshire. Chief executive Ed Monaghan commented: “This year marks our 90th in business and the fourth of our five year plan. We have consolidated last year’s outstanding performance with another period of growth and improved profitability. “While we have seen footfall and sales at our sites increase, like every other housebuilder, we have been watching with interest the situation with the scheme that is set to replace Help to Buy (Scotland). The original initiative was a real boost to the industry when it was introduced but we saw it fully subscribed in just a few months this year and we await with interest the detail around the new scheme. “Our other business units have now established themselves as profit centres with milestones including our first land sale in England and our Commercial Property division’s first development sale. The focus now is on growing income from external sources to ensure we are fully exploiting our skills base and capabilities.” Mactaggart & Mickel Group was named Employer of the Year at the 2015 Homes for Scotland Awards. Site manager Stuart Gillespie, based at Greenan Views in Ayr, was recognised as the best in the UK for the second year running in the Medium Builder category at the National House Building Council’s Pride in the Job Awards, considered the ‘Oscars’ of the industry. The innovative Polnoon development in Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire was awarded a prestigious Saltire Award in 2015 for Innovation in Housing. For more information on Mactaggart & Mickel Group visit www.macmicgroup.co.uk
