Further to the Government’s pre-budget announcements on Monday, Harvest Housing Group have reacted positively to the news that £775m will be brought forward to invest in social housing over the next two years, an additional investment to the £700m sum outlined in the rescue package earlier this year.
Harvest, a leading edge group of housing associations and companies that owns and manages 18,000 homes across the North West and Staffordshire has also welcomed Government plans to support regeneration work, something that they are strongly committed to.
Commenting on the announcements, Ian Perry, Chief Executive of Harvest said:
“These measures will enable us to continue our growth and our provision of high quality housing across all of our neighbourhoods. Having witnessed the positive results of investment in Grove Village, Manchester, the first housing Private Finance Initiative project to reach contract signing, we look forward to witnessing a continued growth in regeneration across the country”.
The news that nearly a third of the proposed £775m is due to be spent on making existing social housing more energy efficient was also met positively by Ian who said:
“As housing providers we feel it is our responsibility to continually improve our provision of energy efficient homes. The benefits of which will not only be seen by our residents in their bills, but in the significant reduction of carbon emissions”.
Mr Perry added…
“We continue to demonstrate our commitment to improving the environment by appointing our own domestic energy assessors across the group, adding to our existing experienced Property Asset team”.
The seven Domestic Energy Assessors will be responsible for testing the energy efficiency of Harvest homes and providing Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) to existing and new customers. Unlike many RSL’s, Harvest has decided to undertake a planned and pro-active EPC programme which will lead to all of it’s 18,000 homes being energy assessed within the next two years.