Landlord appoints former Grand Union boss into director role

CHA was set up following the publication of the Church of England’s Coming Home report in 2021, commissioned in response to the housing crisis by the archbishops of Canterbury and York. Its chair is David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester.

It intends to build 30,000 homes on 60 sites around England, using the church’s 200,000-acre land portfolio.

Ms Evans was previously chief executive of Grand Union Housing Group, which merged with Longhurst Group in December, creating a 37,000-home landlord with the new name Amplius.

At the time, she explained that stepping down from her last role after the tie-up was the “most difficult” decision she has ever made, but said she was “filled with both gratitude and optimism”.

Ms Evans is an experienced housing professional with more than 30 years working at executive level. She has also served as president of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Speaking to Inside Housing in 2022, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, the Church of England’s bishop for housing, said the church is aiming to use low-interest debt to acquire social housing properties.

Dr Francis-Dehqani said that the decision to set up a national housing association is partly due to the lack of capacity and expertise at a local level, as well as the realisation that “if we were only to develop housing on the land that we currently own, or the proportion of it that is developable, we won’t really bring about the justice that we want to be part of seeing”.

The model of the new housing association will therefore be built around using low-interest debt to acquire properties, which would be secured on the properties the church purchases and underpinned by the church’s own resources. 

Dr Francis-Dehqani said the housing association could also eventually buy land to develop on, but stressed that plans were still in the early stage.