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Midlands landlord completes 40% more homes than previous year
East Midlands landlord EMH Group completed 490 homes in 2022-23, a 40% increase on the previous year.
In its latest annual report, the housing association hailed “a strong year” for development despite the rising costs of labour, materials and planning.
It represents a significant improvement from 2021-22, when the housing association built just 60% of its 550-home target for the year, blaming ongoing impacts of the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis for delayed starts.
Of the 490 homes completed in 2022-23, 315 were for affordable rent and 163 were for shared ownership, compared to 192 and 93 respectively in the previous year.
At the same time, EMH built 12 homes for social rent last year, compared to 58 in 2021-22.
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The landlord, which ranked 33rd in Inside Housing’s Top 50 Biggest Builders 2023, said its position as a Homes England strategic partner “gives us greater certainty and control over what we’re able to build, when and where”.
In 2022-23, EMH explained that it had “maximised and used all the Affordable Housing Programme funds available” to build homes across 15 local authorities.
This includes a total of 22 properties built on behalf of Ashfield District Council, which the landlord said helped “the local authority to restart council homebuilding”.
Last year, EMH also completed its first modular construction scheme at Beeston. However, following the “exit of some high-profile providers” from the market, it said it would “keep an eye on how things develop before we commit to any further projects using offsite manufacturing”.
Despite increasing mortgage rates, sales of shared ownership homes “remained buoyant”, the landlord said, bringing in £13m to subsidise rental development.
Turnover at the group was £130m in 2022-23, up from £121.7m the previous year. However, operating surplus was down slightly at £31.4m.
Current rent arrears as a percentage of total rent collectable remained similar at 3.25%, and overall satisfaction with homes and services was down to 87% from 90% in 2021-22.
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