We can assist small RPs to launch and manage a sizeable development programme of new housing and advise on necessary asset management, housing management and maintenance policies and market shared ownership housing.

 

Andrew Seddon, Director of Adams Integra first began working with Rapport (formerly Abbeyfield Kent Society) in late 2013 with a view to working up bids for HCA (now Homes England) capital grant funding from the HCA’s forthcoming 2015-18 Programme for three new extra care* housing schemes for over 55s. RHC’s model is that each tenant or leaseholder must be over 55 and require a minimum of 3.5 hours’ care/support per week.

 

Extra care schemes include a communal restaurant, lounge/cinema room, assisted bathroom/spa, and communal gardens that residents of any apartment can use. They also offer a domiciliary care service for residents, thus enabling residents to maintain their independence but in a secure environment with 24-hour staffing.

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Rapport is a small RP and registered charity with c. 700 bedspaces in management and provides housing, care and support exclusively for older people.

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The quality of our bid submission meant that RHC was successful in receiving HCA capital funding of c. £4.5M for all three schemes bid for, in spite of doubts owing to the size of the organisation.

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RHC owned the land, but architects and engineers were needed to work up the schemes to Planning application. Also needed was close liaison  with the Local Housing & Planning Authorities (Borough Council) and local residents whilst simultaneously setting  up an OJEU compliant contractors’ framework as the scheme cost estimates of c. £8M to £11M were clearly above the EU procurement threshold.

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All was successfully achieved and two of the schemes are now complete providing 74 new extra care apartments for rent in one (including 20 for veterans/ex-service personnel) and 59 in the second with 24 apartments for long leasehold for the elderly as well as 35 for Affordable Rent.

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Further funding has been secured from the HCA’s 2016-21 Programme with 1 further scheme starting and another due late summer (both schemes are in villages and the former is on a rural exception site). Both will offer 51 apartments, a mix of Affordable Rent, shared ownership and market sale apartments to assist older people of all classes  to ‘downsize’, thus releasing their former family homes for younger families to occupy.

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Asset management

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Following the success of the grant funding, RHC commissioned us to carry out a full asset management strategy of its existing stock. This has identified further redevelopment opportunities, along with some properties that were beyond their useful life and could be disposed of; to date, three have been raising over £2.5M to support RHC’s new development programme.

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Housing management & Marketing leasehold properties

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AI’s Associate Director Heather Grant has been working closely with RHC housing and domestic care colleagues for the last two years to help meet the challenges of letting and managing the new extra care schemes, rationalising the old supported housing schemes and assisting in setting up and co-ordinating the marketing of the leases required for both the new shared ownership and market sale extra care units.

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Andrew Seddon, Director of Adams Integra.