Formation 1963 (1963) Region served Central England Website www.bromford.co.uk Staff 600 | Location Wolverhampton Chief Executive Philippa Jones Founded 1963 Type Social enterprise | |
Purpose Housing management, affordable home development, housing related support. | ||
Bromford is a social Enterprise providing affordable housing and specialist housing support services. The businesses covers a wide geographical area, predominately Central England, which includes the West Midlands, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Cirencester, the Cotswolds, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and some areas of East Wales. Bromford also incorporates Bromford Homes, an outright sale business arm providing shared ownership homes to assist private/ social renters move onto the property ladder.
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Bromford currently has 28,000 affordable homes and 9,000 people receiving specialist support, meaning the business has more than 60,000 customers across its operating area.
History
In 1918 rented housing comprised 70% of the market but only a fraction of these homes were deemed to be ‘affordable’ or ‘social’. There were a number of charitable housing bodies such as the Guinness Trust and Peabody Trust, and some industrial companies who supplied rented homes for their workers but they were relatively small in number. Local authorities only started to provide rented homes in any volume after the Great War. The development of new affordable housing by [housing associations] (HA) was an objective of the established charitable organisations such as Peabody and Cadbury but they expanded only slowly until the 1960s.
Bromford Housing Association Limited, named after Bromford Bridge railway station in the Bromford area of Birmingham, was formed by a group of housing sector professionals in 1963. They formed a management committee run by quantity surveyor and Chairman Charles Bucknall, estate agent Robert Oulsnam and solicitor Keith James. In order to take advantage of loans from the new Housing Corporation an entirely new association had to be formed as a ‘society’. This became ‘Second Bromford Housing Society’.
Bromford’s first scheme was built at West Heath Road in Birmingham.
Leadership
Bromford's management team consists of CEO Phillipa Jones Group Finance Director Andrew Battrum and Executive Director Nick Cummins.
Board Members
Bromford adopts the UK Corporate Governance Code and has 7 Non-Executive Directors (NEDs). These are:
Bromford's Executive Director Philippa Jones spoke out about the future of boards within housing in The Guardian, and highlighted the need for more non housing professionals to get involved.
Finances
In 2012, Bromford recorded a turnover of £133.6m, and a surplus of £22m (up from £17m previously). In August 2013, Bromford raised a further £60m worth of investment through private placement from Legal & General and Prudential subsidiary M&G, while the transaction was managed by Lloyds Bank.
HCA Funding
In 2014, Bromford received widespread coverage in housing press after the social enterprise announced it would not be bidding for Homes and Communities Agency funding. In a blog on the Bromford website, Philippa Jones told readers that grant regimes restrict progress, and that the focus should not be on number of homes built, but the impact that can be made on communities.
In 2013/14, Bromford invested £58.5m in completing 624 new affordable homes, of which £4.7m came from grant. Going forward, the organisation says it still plans to invest £335m between 2015-18, delivering about 600 homes per year