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A week in the life of… a national property development manager
Heidi Fisher is national property development manager at Housing 21. She discusses housing makeovers, tendering competitions and dementia-friendly design
Monday
One of my favourite parts of my job is reviewing design schemes with the three in-house interior designers in my team, and we’ll usually start the week with a meeting.
Interior design has always been an important part of our development work at Housing 21. We’re currently planning to deliver at least 800 new homes per year, and the residents of these schemes will view the communal areas as an extension of their homes. The interior design of our developments is crucial for first impressions, but also for enabling residents to age in place.
Design started off as a hobby for me as I’ve always loved home improvements. But a few years ago, when I was moving to a new house, I decided I wanted to learn more – that’s when I completed my professional diploma in interior design. Later, when one of Housing 21’s designers left, I was asked to help with a few scheme makeovers – there was no looking back.
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Tuesday
Since 2010, I’ve conducted Housing 21’s option appraisals and the disposal of properties that are no longer viable to keep.
I’m responsible for getting the best return on the properties and providing potential buyers with the information they need. So today I spent time working closely with our legal team, checking contracts and getting asbestos reports, fire risk assessments and Energy Performance Certificates together, as well as preparing the commercial property standard enquiries.
Wednesday
Today I was in Didcot, Oxfordshire, to review a scheme that’s about to start on site. We held a mini tendering competition with five interior designers that are on our procurement framework, so a member of the team and I got together to review their submissions. I was blown away by some of the ideas.
Thursday
I spent the day at a new extra-care development in Fakenham, Norfolk, that has just been completed to ensure everything has been finished to the standard Housing 21 expects.
The scheme has dementia-friendly features, such as street names to help residents around the building and cosy areas with references to local landmarks. I’m very familiar with the interior plans for the development, but seeing them brought to life was fantastic.
Friday
I met virtually with five furniture suppliers, as we are retendering our furniture contracts.
In the afternoon, I worked on a training plan for Housing 21’s asset management department. Our department recently held a training amnesty, through which all colleagues could record their training needs. I take the lead on ensuring this is followed up.
This made me think back to my own interior design training and how it opened up a new area of work which complemented the rest of my asset and development role.
When residents move into one of our schemes, or if it had a makeover, they really do appreciate the little design touches. Sometimes they’ll say, “I can’t believe I live here”, or “it’s so beautiful, it’s like a hotel”, and that always makes my week.
A week in the life series
Our ‘A week in the life’ series features housing professionals talking through what they do in their job on a day-to-day basis.
Find out about the different challenges housing workers in a variety of roles face in a given week.
We aim to feature staff from housing associations, ALMOs, local authorities and more.
Click here to nominate yourself or a colleague for inclusion
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