18 Round Table Review


fact that landlords need to get ahead of the curve; I think some are doing that.” He added that he had a “concern that a lot of the press and the Ombudsman generates is quite negative; the horror stories, because that’s what sells tabloids.” He advocated a more balanced approach, and encouraged “promotion of more of the good stuff ; I think that would inspire people.” Dale Holroyd of ZapCarbon said that a more preventative approach,


including “mould-free property Key Performance Indicators” was preferred to a reactive one where “a lot of the focus is doing a survey, sending in contractors, getting the works done, closing the job, and repeating that cycle over and over again.” He advocated “having a standard within your organisation which actually tracks mould-free properties,” and also accepted there was a challenge of “all the moving parts you may deal with; a dozen diff erent contractors, and potentially probably 200-300 repairs in 100 properties.” He concluded: “Everyone’s using diff erent property management tools, and it’s very, very hard to actually track when repairs are completed, it’s just a constant moving target.” Stephanie Goad of Golding Homes said that she liked the idea of ‘mould free


KPIs,’ but said she “struggled with how we could get there with comprehensive data; in our stock condition surveys, we’ve got 96% that are fi ve years or less, which is good, but that means most of my knowledge is going to be dated.” She added however that on the proactive front, Golding Homes is pursuing a ‘silent voices’ project to seek views from the “big cohort of customers we don’t hear from.” She added: “We might discover all sorts of stuff , but we’re going to proactively reach out to people.” David Bly off ered a fi nal word on the importance of breathability in the


building envelope, for achieving Healthy Homes, but that some modern buildings provided more issues than older homes in terms of air quality. He said that from being called out to properties following the 2007 fl oods, his fi rm had also been asked to investigate why some homes had a “moisture band a metre up a wall; it was because they can’t breathe.”


CONCLUSION: REDRESSING THE BALANCE According to Stephanie Goad of Golding Homes, despite the Healthy Homes challenges revealed at our round table, there are also many examples of good practice that need celebrating: “T ere are a lot of issues, but there are also a lot of buildings which operate very well and customers having a healthy life. So I think we need to slightly redress the balance.” Aff ordability of investing in the necessary technology, manpower and


resident engagement will remain a major hurdle. Andrew Burke of the National Housing Maintenance Forum said that in the light of the upcoming Awaab’s Law legislation, “We need to try and help to manage expectations about what’s going to be aff ordable to deliver, and to what timescale.” Generally, there was qualifi ed positivity around the Act and the new regime


for monitoring homes’ quality at our round table; Burke asserted however that with tenant trust having been “destroyed”, this would take time to rebuild. Collaboration, so oſt en cited, but crucial to success here, was the key; as Hony Premlal said: “Contractors, landlords, customers, all working together as a partnership to solve this problem – it is our problem.”


T e event chair Matt Baird summed up the importance of the Building


Insights LIVE round table, and celebrated the insights it generated: “To have a really wide mix of people around the table, I think there’s something there for anybody, be it a social landlord, be it government, or whoever, to kind of fi nally get chance to hear things from every perspective, and enable people to have those conversations, makes all the diff erence.”


RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INDUSTRY & GOVERNMENT


• Billy Cliff en: Help us be more strategic in defi ning what good looks like; there are brilliant ideas out there, but we need a strategic vision from the Government, that we can all align to.


• Stephanie Goad: Decent Homes is not a very high standard, so how within the bounds of aff ordability could we not have another race to the bottom, but create healthy homes?


• Dale Holyroyd: I don’t think that there’s a money problem, I think there’s a reactive maintenance problem; moving to a preventative model will pay for itself. We need the tools in place to allow landlords to model this, there needs to be some form of incentivisation.


• Sarah Garry: Looking at the building as a system is fundamental; landlords have lots of diff erent regulations, and they don’t work together systemically. We need to think holistically about net zero, social issues, social issues, cost of living, health and well being, as well as our regulatory environment.


• Douglas Booker: Focus on the person-centered element; put eff ort into earning trust with residents, rebuilding some of those broken relationships. Technology has to be aligned with how people are actually living in these spaces.


• Hony Premlal: It’s not about awarding penalties, it’s about raising standards, building trust; we need to see Government and housing come together to fi nd a solution, and work with the people who are living in their homes.


• Amy Bentall: When Awaab’s Law comes into eff ect in October, we don’t want it to just be papering over the cracks. So can the language in the consultation be more specifi c about what landlords having to ‘fi x the issue’ means?


• Andrew Burke: I’d like to see more promotion of solutions that work. We’ve gone through a phase where Government, the ombudsman, the regulator, and the media all wanted to name and shame.


• Hector Altamirano-Medina – Codesign is important; with our residents, but also with every single member of the institution, also education is key.


• Lee Reevell: We need a standardisation of property records; something like a car service log book.


Housing Management & Maintenance April/May 2025


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36