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Top Rating for Arcon

Top rating for Arcon

The Arcon team is delighted that our regulator Homes England recently confirmed that Arcon has maintained its top G1 and V1 rating for governance and financial viability, after our In Depth Assessment (IDA).

The IDA started in August last year and Homes England were very supportive of the approach we have adopted to modernise Arcon and get ourselves in a position to build more much needed homes across the region.

This was the first time Arcon has undergone an IDA and securing top grades is a testament to the hard work put in by Board members, staff and our Tenant Scrutiny Committee.

Board meeting

We have had our first Board meeting with our four new members who bring with them a range of dynamic skills and experience which will help to shape the future of Arcon.

Launch at Humphrey Road, Trafford

Next month we are planning a launch for stakeholders at our shared ownership development of four new two-bed homes at Humphrey Road. I happen to think this is as good an infill site regeneration initiative as you are likely to see.

 

The site has remained vacant for 25 years, after four terraced homes were demolished, until our specialist development team, working alongside partners, grasped the opportunity to make this happen. It is fantastic to see residents moving in; we will have more on the launch in next month’s Blog.

 

Community fund

 

Arcon is delighted to announce that we are continuing to make a social investment in our neighbourhoods with our community fund programme. Funding we are providing is supporting Manchester Secondary Pupil Referral Unit which offers 1-to-1 support for 11-16 year-olds having difficulties learning in mainstream schools.

 

The Manchester Secondary PRU has 26 centres across the city demonstrating the need for this bespoke education service at a critical time in the lives of young people. Arcon’s community funding grant will support hot and nutritional breakfasts at the Breakfast Club at Mersey Valley Centre, which is currently restricted to offering cold breakfasts to students.

 

The community fund is also supporting the Children’s Safety Education Foundation, which is working with the Co-Operative School in the Blackley area of Manchester, where we have Arundel Court. The charity is teaching 350 young people at the School the ‘Respect Your Life’ citizenship programme, analysing the effects that crime and anti-social behaviour have on their health, safety and well-being as well as impacts on their community.

 

Labour’s Housing Green Paper 

 

Labour’s response to the housing crisis was announced this month with a Housing for the Many Green Paper focusing on building 1 million more affordable homes over 10 years.

Labour aims to make affordable housing available to a broad range of people on low incomes. There is a seismic U-turn in terms of Labour’s attitude to affordability, with Labour redefining 'affordable housing' by scrapping the Conservatives' so-called 'affordable rent' at up to 80 per cent of market rents and introducing a new definition linked to incomes including: social rent, living rent and low-cost ownership. This would be a localised income-based definition, probably set at a third of incomes in a given community.

Specifically to deal with the problems raised by the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, the Green Paper also proposes a new Decent Homes 2 target for social landlords, with social landlords required to publish their fire safety standards for the first time.

As always, if you have any issues or would like to get involved in our Tenant Scrutiny Committee, please contact our Customer Hub on 0161 2144120.

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