Large Birmingham landlord to upgrade 6,000 homes with £300m investment
Midland Heart plans to spend £300m on improving its homes over the next five years as it has some of the oldest social housing stock in the country.
The Birmingham-based landlord said it will upgrade around 6,000 of its 35,000 homes to enable “modern living”. Of these, around 4,500 were built pre-World War II, the group said.
The planned spending, confirmed in a new five-year corporate strategy today, will be on new components, building safety and retrofitting measures.
Midland Heart, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year, first signalled its plans for major investment last December.
READ MORE
Overall, the landlord has around 10,000 homes that are at least 100 years old. Many of its homes have already had “significant investment” over the past five years to get them to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band D or better, a spokesperson told Inside Housing.
Around 80% of its homes are now at EPC C or above, but it is aiming to have all its stock at this minimum by 2030.
The landlord said it will also continue “simplifying its portfolio” through “strategic disposals”. This will ensure homes are “fit for purpose” and “deliver value for money”, the strategy said.
Last year, Midland Heart sold 1,567 retirement properties to neighbouring landlord Housing 21 as part of a move to simplify its operations.
The group is also aiming to deliver 2,250 new homes by 2030. The tenures will be “primarily social and affordable with a focus on family homes”, the spokesperson said.
Joe Reeves, executive director of finance and growth at Midland Heart, said it will work with developers, local authorities and the West Midlands Combined Authority to “deliver more high-quality, energy-efficient affordable homes by 2030”.
Under its 2019-2025 corporate plan, the landlord was targeting 4,000 new homes, through development and acquisition. It said today this will “soon be achieved”.
The group also revealed today that it is planning a net zero affordable housing scheme “of scale” in the Midlands, currently known as Project 100.
The group’s new corporate strategy is entitled Tenants at Heart. Midland Heart branded it a “collaboration” as it is based on feedback from around 1,500 tenants and 650 face-to-face visits to homes. Around 14,000 tenant surveys were also completed. Midland Heart has around 70,000 tenants.
It comes amid a heightened focus on tenant experience under the English regulator’s new consumer standards regime, which launched last April.
As part of its new strategy, Midland Heart said it will halve repair completion times from 28 days to 14 days.
Emergency repairs will be completed in 24 hours, the landlord said, which is in line with the requirements of Awaab’s Law, which comes into force this October.
And “specific major works” will be completed in 90 days, the strategy said.
Glenn Harris, chief executive of Midland Heart, said: “Tenants at Heart is Midland Heart’s promise to put the tenant at the centre of our operations, our mindset and our strategy over the next five years.
“We will empower our colleagues to make decisions on our tenants’ behalf, we will make record investments in our tenants’ homes, and we will build new homes so more people in our region have access to affordable housing.”
Mr Harris recently spoke to Inside Housing about why the next five years will be a significant milestone in the housing association’s history, as it marks its 100th birthday in 2025.
Sign up for our development and finance newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
