Member Article

North East landlords Isos and Cestria announce partnership

Two North East social landlords, Isos Housing and Cestria Community Housing, have partnered promising to deliver millions of pounds of savings, helping to provide more homes and improved services for their residents.

The companies have become partners under the umbrella of the Isos Housing Group, managing 17,000 homes between them.

The combined business will employ around 550 staff, and boast a combined turnover in excess of £70 million, making it one of the top 100 largest businesses in the region.

The chief executives of the two landlords, Keith Loraine from Isos and Paul Fiddaman from Cestria, say they will deliver cost savings in the order of £6 million over the first five years of working together, and £2 million per annum every year after that.

Each landlord will continue to operate autonomously on a day-to-day basis and wherever possible will collaborate to save money on the delivery of key central and operational services.

This level of annual saving would, if re-invested in housebuilding, support the borrowing required to build some 200 new homes.

The pair say they are confident that their ‘federal model’ of working together will deliver the necessary economies of scale, to provide the best possible services to their residents without losing any sense of identity and maintaining close community links.

Isos and Cestria are both part of national campaigns calling for an end to the UK’s housing crisis – the National Housing Federation’s ‘Yes to Homes’, and the industry wide ‘Homes for Britain’.

These campaigns aim to massively increase the number of new homes built in the UK each year, which stood at just 109,000 in 2013.

Partnerships and group structure arrangements have been a feature of the social housing world in recent years, but the Isos Group says it will not be adopting an aggressive approach to cost cutting, instead achieving savings through a gradual process of natural change.

The Group has committed to a two year no compulsory redundancies guarantee, to reassure staff of their commitment to growing the group and maintaining high standards of service for all Isos and Cestria residents.

Mr Loraine said: “We are working in a world where we need to make every pound of our income deliver tangible benefits for our residents, and for the communities we serve.

“By working together with Cestria, we can drive costs down at the same time as improving our services and building more homes for those in need.

“We are confident that what we are creating here is a strong and sustainable social housing business.”

Deputy chief executive of Isos Housing Group, Mr Fiddaman, said: “There is a natural fit between our two businesses, both in geography and in our values as organisations.

“Until now, the largest concentrations of Isos Group homes have been on Tyneside and in Northumberland.

“We are both organisations which take our roles as employers very seriously, and we share a strong commitment to our communities, beyond simply maintaining the bricks and mortar of our homes.”

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