JV North welcomes three more social housing members

Wayne Gales

A North West social housing consortium has welcomed three new members as the 2021/26 Affordable Homes Programme gets under way.

Johnnie Johnson Housing, Muir Group and Peaks & Plains Housing Trust have joined JV North, taking its full board membership to 13.

Other members are Bury Council, Community Gateway Association, One Manchester, Plus Dane Housing, Sovini, Stockport Homes with Stockport Council, Torus, Trafford Housing Trust, Weaver Vale Housing Trust and Wythenshawe Community Housing Group.

Poynton-based Johnnie Johnson Housing has a development programme that sees it building 1,000 new affordable homes in the coming years. Lisa Johnson, director of development, said: “We are delighted to be joining JV North at a time when it is procuring a £560m framework to build over 4,000 homes in the North of England.

“We have over 50 years’ experience in social housing and we aim to deliver affordable homes that cater for residents over the age of 55. With smart adaptions and resident safety being our main priority, we are looking forward to working with JV North to build safe, secure and affordable housing.”

The second new member is Muir Group, based in Chester. Its assistant director of assets and growth, Alex Fury, said: “It is the perfect time for us to be joining JV North as we enter into the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme.

“We very much look forward to further developing relationships across the consortium with the aim to grow our development programme and deliver urgently needed affordable homes across the North West and our East of England region.”

Peaks & Plains Housing Trust is the final new member to join the consortium and it will build more than 200 new properties by 2023. Chief executive, Mark Howden, said: “JV North is an important opportunity for us to explore alternative ways that we can provide much needed quality homes as part of our commitment to create great places to live.”

Wayne Gales, JV North chairman and chief executive of Weaver Vale Housing Trust, said: “JV North is growing all the time with like-minded organisations seeing the benefits of collaborating to address the housing crisis.

“The three new members will undoubtedly strengthen the consortium and have all cited the added benefits of sharing market intelligence as key factors in joining, in addition to securing Homes England grant, programme support and access to our contractors’ and consultants’ framework.”

Since forming in 2007, the consortium has built the equivalent of three-and-a-half homes every working day with more than 8,000 properties built by members.

More than 4,550 properties are being constructed in the current 2016/21 Shared Ownership Affordable Homes Programme thanks to an investment of in excess of half a billion pounds between members and Homes England.

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close