We have been shortlisted for two national housing awards

The national awards are about the social landlords, charities and partners, who work with their communities to deliver great outcomes for tenants and residents. Judged by tenants and experts from individual fields, these awards are designed not just to celebrate success, but to help other landlords learn from and replicate it.

Helping us to tackle the shortage of affordable housing locally, over the past twelve months we have invested £27m in building new homes across Oldham and neighbouring areas. We’ve started work on 320 new homes in the last year alone and completed 137 new, mixed tenure homes in 2022/23 – trebling performance against the previous year’s starts-on-site outputs and achieving 50% more completions. This work has earned us a place in Homes England’s top ten partners in the North, and in the top twenty nationally at the end of Q1 2023 - 24. The Development team behind this performance has also been named a finalist in the ‘Best development team – urban’ category in the 2023 Inside Housing Development Awards.

Our dedicated employment service has consistently gone above and beyond to achieve the best outcomes for our customers, providing tailored, wraparound support to help customers into work, training or volunteering. In the period April 2022 - March 2023, we supported 209 residents into employment and more than 360 residents were helped onto a range of in-house and externally accredited training courses, exceeding our annual target of 300. This year we also welcomed 45 young people into FCHO placements as part of the government’s Kickstart scheme across a variety of roles. 80% of the recruits (36) secured employment following their placement, and we were delighted to welcome 18 of these into roles at FCHO. Following our efforts, we became the leading Kickstart employer in Oldham.

Commenting on the good news, our Acting Chief Executive, Anne McLoughlin said:

“Being shortlisted in these two categories is fantastic recognition of our teams’ high quality, invaluable work to deliver homes we are proud of and improve lives.

Against the backdrop of a chronic shortage of affordable housing options, financial pressures caused by cost-of-living crisis and high levels of deprivation in Oldham, over the past twelve months we have excelled in delivering more high-quality homes to meet local need and supporting customers into vital employment, training and volunteering.

“Our colleagues’ work side by side with our tenants to help them realise their potential; the outcomes can be transformative. We are so proud of our colleagues and tenants; they are winners already in our eyes.”

Winners of this year’s Affordable Housing Awards will be announced in November.

The full list of categories and finalists is available on the Affordable Housing Awards website.