You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Housing association maps flood risk areas and investigates overheating
Accent Housing is mapping flood-risk areas and investigating overheating in its properties as part of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy.
Accent Housing, which has 20,500 homes across England, said it had begun mapping flood-risk areas to determine where mitigation measures may be required.
It is also in the “early stages” of investigating overheating, particularly in independent-living schemes, where centralised heating systems can cause an increased risk.
In its first ESG report, the landlord outlined its efforts to combat climate change and fuel poverty and improve social value over 2022-23.
At the end of the year, 82% of Accent’s rented homes had an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of Band C or above. It has pledged to get all its homes to this level by 2030.
READ MORE
The housing association said all its land-led new build homes – 70% of its development programme – will be built to EPC A. Currently, 815 homes are being built to this standard.
Last year, Accent completed retrofit projects worth £1.25m in 63 homes in Surrey and Yorkshire through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
It has also secured funding to retrofit a further 71 homes in Yorkshire and the East, as well as insulation funding for 99 properties from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.
The landlord created a dashboard which measures arrears data, EPC data and household information to estimate if residents are at risk of fuel poverty.
A fuel poverty task force will be created next year, comprising employees from the sustainability, community development and housing teams, to analyse data and share best practice.
According to the report, the landlord’s median gender pay gap is 11.2%, an improvement on 14.7% in 2021-22. A total of 18% of the Accent board are women, while 27% are Black, Asian or minority ethnic; 9% of board members are LGBTQ+.
Accent said 14,896 of its homes (72.6%) were let at social rent, 167 homes were intermediate rent and 678 were affordable rent.
It built 221 new homes in 2022-23, including 163 for affordable rent, 10 for social rent and 40 for shared ownership.
It received £6m last year from the sale of 42 shared ownership homes and three for outright sale.
Paul Dolan, chief executive of Accent, said: “Accent operates across 71 diverse local authority areas. We are proud of our national footprint along with the positive local impact we make, working within individual communities to help our customers.
“The support that we provide to customers responds to the specific needs and challenges of each community and includes employment, food and fuel poverty, financial inclusion and health and well-being.”
Sarah Ireland, executive director of strategy and growth at Accent, said: “One of our biggest goals is to help our customers tackle fuel poverty and make their energy bills as affordable as possible.
“Retrofit and modernisation works will help us achieve this, which include the installation of better ventilation, improved doors and windows, and more insulation.”
She added: “Our ambitious development programme is key to Accent’s mission to help address the national shortage of affordable housing for those in need.
“With a total of 1,304 homes in the pipeline, these new homes will all be built to the highest energy-efficiency standards.
“Sustainable and innovative modern methods of construction will be used to allow for lower running costs for our customers.”
Sign up for our asset management newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
