Midlands region welcomes plan co-created by affordable housing tenants

Housing association Midland Heart has launched its new corporate plan to 2030, co-created by tenants. Titled ‘Tenants at Heart’, the organisation claims this will be the most tenant-focused strategy it has ever delivered.

The 40-page plan details how Midland Heart plans to improve the quality of its c35,000 homes and deliver more responsive services for its c70,000 tenants.

Tenants at Heart is a collaboration between landlord and tenant. Born out of thousands of conversations with tenants, including c14,000 completed tenant surveys, direct feedback from c1500 tenants and c650 face-to-face visits to tenants’ homes, the plan keenly articulates their point of view, culminating in an ambitious strategy that promises to deliver better service outcomes and meet the affordable housing needs of the region.

The cornerstone of Tenants at Heart is quality, underpinned by a £300million investment in their ‘homes fit for modern living’ programme, incorporating decent homes, retrofit and modernisation work over the next five years. The organisation has some of the oldest homes of any housing association in the country, with over 10,000 properties over 100 years old. Midland Heart’s latest strategy looks to tackle this head on, with a proactive programme of home upgrades and a preventative repairs service.

After spending the last few years simplifying our organisation and refocusing on our core social purpose as a landlord, I am confident that we have arrived at a place where we truly understand the priorities of our tenants and have the financial resilience and capacity to tackle them. Tenants at Heart is Midland Heart’s promise to put the tenant at the centre of our operations, our mindset, and our strategy over the next five years. We will empower our colleagues to make decisions on our tenants’ behalf, we will make record investments in our tenants’ homes, and we will build new homes so more people in our region have access to affordable housing.

Glenn Harris, Chief Executive of Midland Heart

The plan teases the delivery of a net zero affordable housing community scheme of scale in the Midlands. ‘Project 100’ will be one of Midland Heart’s future flagship developments, an ambitious follow-up to the pioneering Project 80 development of homes completed in 2022, some of the first homes in the UK to meet the Future Homes Standard 2025.

The Midlands landlord also plans to deliver 2250 homes by 2030, which if successful will amount to a total of 6000 affordable homes delivered in the last decade.

Executive Director of Finance and Growth at Midland Heart, Joe Reeves, said:

“Over the course of our 2019-2025 corporate plan we have made a significant contribution towards the supply of affordable housing in the Midlands, and soon we will have achieved our goal of developing and acquiring 4,000 new homes across the Midlands by 2025. Target set, target met. We approach our new corporate plan in a great financial position with our A1 stable credit rating that we will deliver on our future objectives.

"We will continue to do all we can to address the shortage of homes in our region, and will work with our developer partners, local authorities and the WMCA to deliver more high-quality, energy efficient affordable homes by 2030.”

The West Midlands Combined Authority welcomes the organisation’s commitment to delivering more social and affordable homes for tenants in the region. West Midlands Mayor and leader of the WMCA, Richard Parker, is working closely with providers like Midland Heart to make this happen and deliver more homes, at pace. Speaking of Midland Heart’s plan for the next five years, Parker added:

“Midland Heart has been providing decent homes in our region for over 100 years. But there are still too many people in our region living in poor quality, temporary accommodation. The scale of that challenge means it has never been more important, or more urgent, that we build more homes for our residents.

“I’m already tackling the shortage in partnership with housing associations like Midland Heart. Since December, we have backed schemes that will deliver nearly 500 new social and affordable homes for those communities that need them most. But this is just the start."

This investment in Midland Heart’s existing homes will make a significant improvement to the daily lives of thousands of families across our region – making their homes safer, warmer and cheaper to run.

Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands

Tenants at Heart was also born out of several conversations with council leaders across the Midlands region, including leader of Birmingham City Council, John Cotton, who is particularly supportive of the housing association’s efforts to develop local neighbourhoods and shape sustainable communities in Birmingham.

We welcome Midland Heart’s commitment to making a greater impact in our communities and to the delivery of more affordable homes. Everyone in Birmingham should live in safe, sustainable and thriving communities and we will continue to work with Midland Heart and our partners to increase housing delivery and develop our neighbourhoods and local areas across the city.

Councillor John Cotton, Leader of Birmingham City Council

Take a look at Midland Heart's corporate plan microsite for more information on their new strategy and the four pillars of their plan: Midland Heart – Corporate Plan 2025 – 2030