In 2020, we revised our Corporate Plan 2018-2023.pdf to reflect the challenges that came out of the pandemic.
With most of our employees continuing to work remotely throughout the year, our IT systems became more important than ever. We invested in the right tools so our teams can keep delivering the standard of support and services you expect.
Greener homes and ways of working
As a responsible business, we’re keen to reduce the carbon footprint of not only our homes but also the way we operate as a business. In 2020-21, we retained the Green Award from Investors in Environment for the seventh year running. We've also been talking to our employees about how working from home can help us become even more environmentally friendly.
It’s not always easy to take existing homes and lower their carbon footprint, but we’ve been working to reduce our impact on the environment for many years now. It’s essential to make sure our homes are as cost effective to run as possible so that no one living in a CKH home lives in fuel poverty. (Fuel poverty is the widely recognised term we use when people cannot afford to heat their homes.) 98% of our homes are already rated with an Energy Performance Certificate of band C or above and we’ve developed a plan to help us reach the government’s carbon targets.
Building new homes
Growing the amount of affordable homes within our communities is one of our most important aims. We believe everyone has the right to live in a safe, affordable home and to be respected by their landlord.
As well as building new homes in our hometown of Peterborough, in recent years we’ve also expanded our development programme into the surrounding area. As of 2020-21, more than 10% of our homes are now spanning communities in Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire.
As with construction sites across the country, Covid restrictions slowed progress with new developments and we saw fewer homes completed than we had planned. We still managed to build 290 homes and a further 35 through our joint venture, Medesham Homes.
We’re planning to build more than 2,400 additional homes over the next five years and last year we secured £2.7 million in grant funding to support the delivery of new homes.
Given the impact of lockdown, it is less likely that we will achieve our ambition to deliver 2,500 homes in the five years between 2018 to 2023. However, we still have the potential to complete an average of 500 quality homes each year. In fact, it’s our plan to deliver more than 4,300 new homes for rent and sale over the next eight years.
Inside Housing named us in the Top 50 Biggest Builders in both 2020 and 2021, reflecting the ambitious plans we have set out. It’s a position we intend to live up to through our strong partnership approach, working with housing associations, house builders and local authorities to build new homes throughout our region.
