News

A survey amongst housing associations in the UK has placed Platform Housing Group in prime position.

Platform Housing Group – which is made up of Fortis Living and Waterloo Housing – has come in at number five in a recent survey of the top 50 biggest builders by Inside Housing magazine.

The annual survey has announced that the Group – which owns 46,000 homes in total – completed 1598 homes during 2018/19, at an investment of £228.5million.

Richard Grounds, Group Commercial Director at Platform Housing Group, said: “One of the principle reasons behind the merger between Fortis Living and Waterloo Housing was to build more homes.  We are therefore absolutely delighted with this achievement in Platform’s first year which is testimony to our robust and strong position within the housing sector. We have made great strides in working towards our objective to build 2000 homes a year. Congratulations to all those who have worked hard to achieve this; we look forward to a bright and successful future.”

Platform Housing Group provides more than 45,000 homes from Herefordshire in the West to the Lincolnshire coast in the East, and from the Derbyshire Dales in the North to the Cotswolds in the South.

Platform Housing Group are pleased to announce the appointment of Elizabeth Froude as our new Group Chief Executive

Elizabeth joins the Group following a successful seven years as deputy chief executive officer at Notting Hill Genesis, one of the UK’s largest housing associations. She has also been more recently involved in supporting the establishment of the new sector funding vehicle, MORhomes.

Elizabeth began her housing career in 2005 when she started a 13 week contract with Parkside Housing. This eventually spanned 7 years and led to the creation of the Radian Group, the only 3-way merger in housing to this day.

Elizabeth has an excellent record of accomplishment working in a number of sectors in both the UK and abroad, in operationally focused roles involving process improvement, change, mergers and buy outs. 

Dennis Sleath, chair of the Platform Housing Group Board, said: “The appointment of Elizabeth as our new group chief executive comes at a very exciting time for the company as we enter a period of continued growth and change.  She is a highly dynamic individual with extensive experience in transformation and integration projects.  We are confident that Elizabeth will lead the company into the future with assurance.  We are absolutely thrilled to welcome her and look forward to working with her.”

Elizabeth said: “I am truly looking forward to joining this great organisation as they start the next step in their evolution. They have a strong legacy and I can already see it has many great people with a passion for good customer service and strong stakeholder engagement. They are much respected as an organisation and I hope I can encourage everyone at Platform to join me in being innovative and brave as we endeavour to make them even greater.”

Elizabeth will take up the position on 8^th July 2019 and takes over the leadership from the retiring group chief executive, David Pickering.

We want people to be excited by our Strategic Plan. It reflects the fact that two strong, ambitious registered providers with a clear synergy and alignment in culture and vision have joined forces to develop a significant regional housing Group. The additional capacity brought as a result of this will be actively invested in housing delivery across the Midlands and surrounding areas. We will:

• DEVELOP 2000 new homes per year (by year 5 post merger)
• DELIVER £12m efficiencies per year (by year 5 post merger)
• TRANSFORM the way we deliver services to customers and communities particularly through digital channels
• ESTABLISH and grow the in-house Property Care business to £50m turnover per year
• PROVIDE career opportunities for existing staff, ATTRACT the best talent and INCREASE the number of apprenticeship opportunities

Our key strategic drivers are:

• Strong financial stability from which to grow and develop

• Robust asset management that invests significantly in our existing housing

• Ambitious development programme to help tackle the shortage of quality affordable housing

• Improvement(s) to local services and development of digital services that meet customer needs

• Development of our relationships with our customers and key partners to work together to achieve our shared ambitions

You can find out more by reading our full Strategic Plan document - CLICK HERE to download the pdf [3mb]

We are always on the look out for the best talent to come and join our team. We are an inclusive employer and welcome applications from everybody. You can find our jobs on the following pages:

Platform Housing Group

Waterloo Housing

Fortis Living