We’re delighted to have secured a 10-year, sustainability-linked £100m loan funding from NatWest. The funding will play a key part in financing the delivery of thousands of new social homes and retrofits as part of Tenants at Heart, our corporate plan which takes us to 2030. Joe Reeves, Deputy Chief Executive and Board Member, said: "This funding helps us to have a real and lasting impact - achieving our ambitions for lower carbon output and reducing fuel bills for tenants. We are grateful to the teams who worked on this transaction, including Natalie Singh and Jasna Djurisic from Trowers & Hamlins, and Imran Mubeen at Newbridge."
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At the weekend, colleagues from hashtag #teamMH marched in this year’s Birmingham Pride Parade, standing in solidarity with our LGBTQ+ colleagues, tenants, and communities. The energy, colour, and unity on the day truly reflected what we stand for at Midland Heart - inclusion, respect, and equality for all. Thank you to everyone who joined us in the parade, and to all who waved at us along the way!
This morning, to kick off our activities at the UK REiiF, our Deputy Chief Executive Joe Reeves shared more about the Yardley Brook project in Birmingham and how partnership working has helped to transform this previously dormant site into a neighbourhood of homes and green spaces. Joe also discussed the Homes for the Midlands LLP - a group of leading West Midlands RPs, including Midland Heart, that will work with Local Authorities and other public sector agencies to increase the supply of new, affordable homes in the region.
Last year, West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker took office, and today he celebrated this milestone with a visit to one of our largest affordable housing developments in Yardley. We're working with Morro Partnerships, Birmingham City Council and West Midlands Combined Authority to transform the site into a thriving community of c300 affordable, family homes. Watch this space!
After 16 years at Midland Heart, our Executive Director of Tenancy Services, formerly Director of Operations, David Taylor, is hanging up his lanyard. David has been instrumental in the development of our organisation over the years and his dedication and passion for providing the highest quality homes and services has been critical to our performance, including our recent C1 award from the Regulator of Social Housing. We are so grateful for everything David has done for our tenants, and on behalf of all colleagues at Midland Heart, we wish him the very best for his retirement 👏🏼 David is pictured with CEO, Glenn Harris at his retirement event, and also with fellow Executive Directors at his last Managers’ Away Day which was held recently at The Hawthorns.
We’re ending the week on a high and are very happy to share that we have met our ambitious target to deliver 4000 homes over the course of Making What Matters Brilliant, our last corporate plan to 2025. This includes 813 new homes built and handed over in the last 12 months, the most we have ever done in a year, with a mix of affordable, social rent and shared ownership. Despite a global pandemic and rising costs, we have remained resilient and continued to deliver high-quality, affordable homes at pace, and at scale. A huge well done to our development team and all other colleagues who helped to make this happen!
Our celebrations continue! Today we hosted a special lunch in each of our offices to celebrate our impressive G1, V1, C1 score from the Regulator of Social Housing. Our Chief Executive, Glenn Harris, personally thanked colleagues for the work they do day in, day out, to support our tenants and improve their homes. Achieving these gradings would not be possible without the contributions of all colleagues across the organisation – one team, working together for our tenants.
To officially mark the start of our new corporate plan, Tenants at Heart, we have had a major revamp of our office spaces, with new interior and exterior wall graphics reflecting the key pillars of our new plan and the mindset and behaviours of #teamMH. We also hosted a live Q&A with our Executive Team this morning via ‘The Feed’, our new colleague social platform, answering questions from colleagues about Tenants at Heart. And of course, no launch day would be complete without a cupcake!!
Introducing Tenants at Heart! We’re thrilled to be launching our new corporate plan to 2030! Co-created with our tenants, Tenants at Heart will be the most tenant-focused strategy we have ever delivered. This corporate plan has been born out of thousands of conversations with our tenants, where we have listened and tried to better understand their wants, needs and priorities. Everything we have committed to doing is to meet their needs and expectations and achieve our collective vision, to deliver quality, affordable homes across the region. We believe the actions needed to address these priorities come under four areas that make up the pillars of our new plan: - Homes that enable modern living - Quality services & local impact - Financial resilience & sustainable growth - One team working together for our tenants Take a look at our corporate plan microsite for more information on our new strategy and the four pillars of our plan.
