Great Places continues to operate in a challenging environment, with economic and regulatory pressures affecting our sector, customers, contractors, suppliers and colleagues. Inflationary cost increases and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have intensified demand across our services.
Despite these pressures, we remain resilient and committed to our mission of providing high-quality, affordable homes and supporting communities. This report outlines our progress against the Sustainability Reporting Standard (SRS) for Social Housing and reaffirms our commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) responsibilities.
In the past year we’ve drafted a new Sustainability Strategy and action plan to reduce our environmental impact, targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 and EPC C or better for all of our homes by 2030. We’ve also improved energy efficiency and heat networks to help customers manage heating costs. Building safety remains a priority, with continued investment in safety measures and long-term remediation plans to meet new legislation and maintain strong customer engagement.
Customer experience has remained central to our work this year. Following our first inspection under the consumer regulation framework, we welcomed positive feedback from the regulator, particularly on customer voice, while our Customer Committee and Insight scrutiny panels have strengthened accountability and service improvement.
In July 2024 we launched our new Corporate Plan, called Here For Our Customers, and we’re making great progress towards delivering on the ambitions within it. We’ve reviewed our repairs service to boost efficiency and customer satisfaction, with changes set for 2025/26. We have also introduced a new telephony platform and reviewed complaints handling to meet Housing Ombudsman standards.
Great Places remains committed to ensuring the health and wellbeing of our customers, securing £750,000 in external funding to support this last year. Referrals for our debt and welfare advice rose by 36%, with £308,000 secured for customers to positively impact their lives. We continue to support vulnerable people through commissioned and in-house services, including tenancy coaching, and remain a key partner in Greater Manchester Housing First and the regional rough sleepers’ programme.
In 2024 we launched our new Inclusive Services Team to help us better understand our customers’ individual needs, and identify opportunities to improve our services as a result. This, alongside enhancements to our housing management system, is really improving our understanding of customer needs so we can tailor our services.
Two of our values are ‘We are fair’ and ‘We care’, and being an inclusive employer that priorities the wellbeing of our people also continues to be a strategic priority. Throughout 2024/25 we continued to play leading roles in promoting home-grown talent through the 20% Movement and Greater Manchester Housing Providers’ BOOST programme, as the case studies later in this report demonstrate.
We continue to work hard to tackle the housing crisis, and our development programme delivered 726 new affordable homes and 196 shared ownership sales during 2024/25. We began the new year with around 2,200 homes on site, progressing our commitments to Homes England.
We retain G1/V2 status from the Regulator of Social Housing. While the V2 rating reflects sector-wide risks, our G1 governance rating confirms strong financial and governance arrangements. We were also among the first organisations assessed under the new consumer standards, achieving a C2 grading. Our credit ratings with Moody’s (A3) and Fitch (A+) were also reaffirmed this year, reflecting our strong balance sheet and solid operating performance, despite ongoing inflationary pressures.
In governance, newly-appointed board members settled in well during 2024/25. Grenville Page stood down as a board member and as the Audit and Assurance Committee Chair in September 2024, and was replaced by Keith Ward, one of our new Non-Executive Directors.
This year we also saw the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer, Alison Dean, who was promoted from her role as Deputy CEO. Alison took up the role on 1 July 2024, joining Group Board and Cube Board at the same time.
There will be some additional changes to Board during the 2025/26 year, with our Chair, Mervyn Jones, standing down in September 2025 along with Christine Amyes (Deputy Chair) and Emma Mountford (Cube Chair). Cath Purdy has been appointed as our next Chair.
In March 2025, the Board also took the decision to make significant governance changes from September 2025. These include making the Cube Board coterminous with Group Board and introducing a new Growth Committee to oversee all development activity across the group, including affordable development, Terra Nova and Cube Homes. This Committee will comprise Group Board Members and independent committee members.
As we enter a new financial year, we look ahead with ambition. The Board has already begun shaping our next 10-year strategy to address sector challenges, invest in homes and communities, and enhance services for our customers.
I’m pleased to present this report, which reflects our achievements in 2024/25 and our continued commitment to tackling sector challenges through investment in our homes, communities and customer services.
Mike Gerrard
