You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Bromford on course to hit annual target after delivering 472 homes in first half of 2023
Wolverhampton-based landlord Bromford has announced it is on track to deliver its annual housing target after completing 472 new homes in the first half of 2023.
The 46,000-home housing association said the completions for the six months up to September 2023 meant it was on course to complete more than 1,200 homes by the end of March next year.
Of the 472 homes completed in the first half of the year, 212 were for social rent.
Bromford narrowly missed its last annual housebuilding target in 2022-23, developing 1,265 homes against a target of 1,289.
According to its latest stock market update, Bromford recorded a turnover of £153m during this period. Its turnover from social housing lettings rose to £132m, accounting for 86% of the total.
The landlord’s post-tax surplus of £33m was comparable to the same period same in 2022, although its operating surplus of £54m and overall operating margin on social housing lettings (34%) were slightly down on what it had budgeted.
Bromford put this down to inflation and the rent cap, but also because of an increased spend on its existing homes due to damp and mould.
READ MORE
Resolving this issue meant the landlord had already spent £2.6m in the first six months of the year, against a full year budget of £1.8m.
The Midlands-based association expects to deliver £5m in efficiency savings this year through its strategic cost review, 80% of which have already been actioned.
The savings are aimed at meeting its budgeted social housing operating margin of 36% by year-end.
Robert Nettleton, chief executive of Bromford, said: “Our mid-year results demonstrate our operational and financial strength as we continue to respond to significant challenges in our sector and the wider economy.
“In the face of economic uncertainty and increasing focus on the condition of our homes, our priority is the well-being of our customers and our people.
“We are proud that our customer advocacy score has risen once again and is now at 89%, that we have invested over £25m in our existing homes, and that we have delivered 472 new affordable, energy efficient homes.”
Mr Nettleton admitted there have been occasions where the landlord has failed to live up to the standards it aims to provide its customers, despite the rise in its advocacy score.
“We have had two cases of severe maladministration upheld by the ombudsman – failing in one case to respond to the needs of a vulnerable customer and in another to adequately address historic damp and mould issues,” he explained.
“We are reflecting on the lessons learnt from these cases and are embedding these lessons into our delivery model to improve our service.”
Going forward, the landlord highlighted its new corporate strategy, which has an increased focus on operating in a place-based way and investing at scale in new homes.
In June, Bromford secured a new £75m revolving credit facility (RCF) with an interest rate partly linked to cutting staff sickness levels.
It agreed a further £100m private placement with three investors to fund its housebuilding and sustainability programme in September.
Imran Mubeen, director of Treasury at Bromford, said the association will be expanding its RCF base to £450m over the next six months.
He added: “The new loans will be sustainability-linked, with a unique social or customer-themed KPI [key performance indication] for each facility. Importantly, our new loans will also focus more holistically on our decarbonisation strategy with an aspiration to re-baseline our Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions and set annualised targets, which will remain independent of any changes to government policy.
“We are committed to data integrity and quality, and accept openly that we have made mistakes in our previous carbon disclosures, so we are now working through this re-baseline, with a third party audit, which will be completed and presented in our year-end update.”
Sign up for our development and finance newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
