What a fantastic couple of days at The Housing Community Summit last week, hosted by Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and National Housing Federation. The event was built around two focus areas, Housing In Focus and Housing In Practice, and gave us a brilliant opportunity to learn, connect and share our ideas across the social housing sector.
Our team Pippa Pang, Lee Venables, Harvey Pipe, Nicole Rooney, Adam Scott and Dave Richardson attended on behalf of Dunhams, Purdy and Spokemead.
A real highlight was the session on attracting and retaining the next generation of talent, with speaker Elly Hoult Chief Operating Officer, Deputy Chief Executive at Peabody Trust and President of the CIH. She shared her own experience in social housing, along with Alesha CIH Futures, Josh Cliff Head of Service Positive Footprints and Halisha Kaur, Chair of CIH Futures, who spoke about school programmes, apprenticeships and social value opportunities.
CIH Futures also shared the results of their survey, which received an overwhelming response from the young people working in our sector, and gave us plenty to think about when it comes to supporting young people to thrive in their social housing careers. Ellie Hoult shared: “We need to support people through the process and focus on the positive elements of the roles.”
There were some really important conversations around gender inclusion, with Lee Hartley – CEO Novus and James Fleming MD and Co-founder The Power Within Training & Development who spoke passionately about encouraging more women into the sector and creating the right culture to support them. James shared: “I don’t see doesn’t see the gender or the sex; I just see the value that the person brings.”
It’s always a pleasure to catch up with Women In Social Housing (WISH). They had their own stand, and it was lovely to see such a buzz, with lots of interest in the membership and everything the network has to offer.
The event wrapped up with an excellent session focusing on ‘Green Skills for all: equipping communities for a sustainable future’ from Peabody, E.ON and Novus Property. The discussion explored how the sector can tackle the 140, 000 vacancies currently delaying construction projects and preparing for the future.
Richard Ellis expressed just how big the challenge is, with 90,000 homes in Peabody alone that need retrofitting by 2036, and 1 million people needed in construction by 2032 nationally. He highlighted that investing in green skills training we are helping people start their careers or change direction of their “If you can get a job now, you’ve got a job for the next 30 years and you can’t say that for many sectors.”
We were pleased to join Sureserve for the reception drinks they sponsored, which was a lovely chance to connect and spend some time together as a group.
We love attending The Housing Community Summit, it’s always such a valuable opportunity for businesses to learn from others and connect with people across the sector that are passionate about making a difference. Thank you, to Chartered Institute of Housing and National Housing Federation, for hosting such a successful event and to all the speakers and everyone for making it such a worthwhile couple of days.
