Member Article

Housing group’s £18 million community and regeneration boost

Warrington-based Your Housing Group, which has 33,000 properties, has released its end of year review showing it achieved a total social value impact of £18 million.

The review reported on the Grouyp’s community, sustainability and regeneration activities for 2014/15.

Highlights include £31,660 raised for charities including more than £19,000 for Macmillan and 690 volunteering hours undertaken by staff who took time out of their working day to help with a range of community initiatives including community centre refurbishments and clean-ups.

The report also reveals that almost £861,000 match funding was attracted in cash and kind which almost trebled the £300,000 target set. Other major successes included 13,000 people engaged in health and wellbeing projects which far exceeded the goal of 3,500, and 4,328 older people engaged in projects to reduce isolation, nearly double the target.

Employment and Skills is always a priority and last year a record number of 811 Your Housing Group residents were supported through volunteering, work experience, training, education and employment.

Kathy Cowell, Chair of Your Housing Group, said; “This has been a fantastic year with total social value achieved reaching £18 million including £15.5 million on community projects, £500,000 on financial inclusion and £2.5 million on employment and skills.

“I want to say a huge thank you to staff, residents, volunteers, board members and our stakeholders for all their hard work and efforts in achieving so much for so many in our communities . We set ourselves some ambitious targets and in almost every case exceeded them which is incredible. I’m very proud of everyone.”

Your Housing Group was established in April 2012 following the merger of two North West based housing providers. It is now one of the UK’s largest social housing providers with more than 33,000 homes across the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands and over 1,300 employees.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .