Link spotlight march 2017 digital

Scotland’s only monthly housing magazine supplement - March 2017

Spotlight

Issue 126

BUILDING HOMES, CREATING COMMUNITIES Multi award-winning contractors and developers

Newbuild Residential Commercial

Framework & Partnering Design & Build

Sustainability Special Needs Provision

Image: Award Winning King’s View, Toryglen, Phase 1

cruden-ltd.co.uk Cambuslang Investment Park, 5 Clydesmill Road, Cambuslang, Glasgow, G32 8RE Telephone: 0141 646 5400 Email: cruden@cbrl.co.uk

- Home Builder of the Year 2016 - Home of the Year - Berberis, King’s View

- Affordable Housing Development of the Year 2016 - King’s View - Residential Sales Team of the Year 2016, CHW

- Most Innovative Contractor 2016, Housing Innovation Awards

Celebrating the completion of Link’s development of Lower Mary Street, Port Glasgow.

Welcome Craig Sanderson Chief Executive Link Group Ltd

The past few years have presented a number of challenges to those of us trying to meet the housing, support, care and economic needs of the most vulnerable people. Welfare reform and uncertainties in the current political climate present the biggest.

Despite these circumstances, Link continues to play a key role in helping to build Scotland’s communities – of place and interest and more broadly, in alleviating inequality.

This Spotlight describes how we continue to remain true to our core aim of providing good quality accommodation for rent and sale at a price affordable to people on low or limited fi xed incomes as well as our improved and widened service provision.

We are excited about these future challenges and plan to meet them headon over the coming years. Our almost doubled development programme of more than 3000 homes in the next five years, the forthcoming launch of our new employability academy and our on-going commitment to providing excellent homes and services fuels our ambition to help more people thrive.

We thank those individuals and organisations who have supported us so far. We look forward to new partners joining us as we collectively strive to achieve the Scottish Government’s targets of 35,000 social and 15,000 “affordable” new homes on its current watch.

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

3

Excellence Link was founded 55 years ago with the purpose of providing homes for affordable rent. Today we have evolved to offer a range of housing options in 26 Scottish local authority areas, across central Scotland as well as in the Highland region and Scottish Borders.

Our aim is to improve the lives of more people. We do this by providing choice and excellence in the delivery of a wide range of quality driven socially inclusive regeneration, housing and support services, working with our partners in the Scottish Government, local authorities and community groups.

We know that delivering excellent services is a continual process and one that requires the ability to sustain and maintain service delivery.

Key to providing excellent services are our people. We continue to invest, support and develop our employees, volunteers and board members to reach their potential.

Our commitment to being a responsible, progressive and supportive employer is highlighted in the accreditations we work towards. We aim to retain our gold awards for both Investors in People and Healthy Working Lives, and our recognition as an Investor in Young People, Investor in Diversity and Investor in Volunteers.

We provide: •

Housing, advice, support and care, asset management and maintenance services

•

Homes and adaptations and other services for older people and disabled people

•

Development of new homes

•

Private Sector Leasing

•

Factoring

•

Access to home ownership

•

Community Investment projects

•

Employment and training opportunities

•

Agency services for the Scottish Government

We also work with our tenants to ensure our services meet their needs and expectations. Our Tenant Scrutiny Panel has established positive working relationships with Link’s Board and staff, successfully helped to achieve a number of positive outcomes for tenants as well expanded its skills and capacity needed to perform effective scrutiny of the Charter. Its work was recognised at the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland Excellence Awards 2016 winning the ‘Excellence in Scrutiny’ Award.

working with link to develop individual identities with a strong brand relationship s inc e n in et een eig h t y n in e

www.framecreative.com

4

BUILDING HOMES IN FANTASTIC LOCATIONS ACROSS SCOTLAND

Your drea home is now within reach...

Bellway are delighted to be working in partnership with Link Housing Association to bring you affordable housing across Scotland. Call today or visit our website to find out more information.

Click: www.bellway.co.uk Call: 01698 477 477 Images are for illustrative purposes only and may include additional upgrades at an additional cost. Specification on site may differ.

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

5

Clockwise (from top): Onsite at Dalmarnock, Glasgow; Thrushcraig’s, Paisley; Abbey Place, Paisley; Dunbeg Oban and onsite at Alva Academy.

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

6

Development

3100 new homes in the next five years

In response to the Scottish Government’s call for 50,000 new affordable homes (including 35,000 for social rent) Link has almost doubled its proposed development programme.

Building on our success of completing 332 new homes in 2016/17 (206 for social rent, 87 for mid market rent and 39 for shared equity) we have the potential to deliver an unprecedented 3100 new homes within the next five years. These will make a significant contribution to tackling the country’s affordable housing requirement.

Link’s development, Alva Academy was Scotland’s first off-site manufactured housing development of scale built to the Gold Standard of Sustainability. This ‘turnkey’ development, built by Tigh Grian Ltd in partnership with Paragon Housing Association and supported by the Scottish Government’s Greener Homes Initiative Scheme, will provide 48 homes for social rent At Dalmarnock, in Glasgow, work is anticipated to start in February 2018. Link and its partners aim to deliver 350 affordable homes and 200 private homes within seven years.

In Dunbeg, Oban, Link has developed an approved masterplan to deliver around 700 new homes with a significant proportion for affordable housing.

Having already completed 75 homes in Phase 1 and 2, it is anticipated that Phase 3 will commence in 2018, delivering the first 300 homes.

We are investigating new models of housing for older people within some of our new developments. These will include a mix of retirement housing featuring homes for market sale and shared equity, combined with a small proportion of high quality family housing.

As part of our ongoing responsibility to contribute to equality and inclusion, we also continue to maximise the supply of new social housing which is accessible to people with disabilities. As part of our development programme, 10% of our planned social housing will be designed to full wheelchair standard. We place particular emphasis on developing this exemplar housing capable of meeting both current and future needs.

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

7

Mollins Gate, Moodiesburn Mixed Tenure Development in Parternship with Link Group

Leading provider of partnership housing Lovell has expertise in housing-led regeneration including: - land identification - open market housing - funding land purchases - new-build - planned maintenance - refurbishment We provide a comprehensive range of services and can offer a full range of options for our clients.

Lovell are delighted to working in partnership with the Link Group on a mixed tenure development which will provide 55 new homes. www.lovell.co.uk

We are pleased to be working with Link Group Limited at City Park & Ferrymuir and look forward to continuing our relationship.

Images from City Park, Ferry Road, Edinburgh

J. Smart & Co. (Contractors) PLC. has established over the last 70 years a substantial presence in Central Scotland based on the construction and development of social housing, private housing and commercial property.

J. Smart & Co. (Contractors) PLC.

28 Cramond Road South, Edinburgh, EH4 6AB — t:0131 336 2181 f:0131 336 4037 w: www.jsmart.co.uk

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

8

Growth Our key areas of commercial activity include managing the Help to Buy and the LIFT Open Market Shared Equity schemes (on behalf of the Scottish Government), Mid Market Rent, Factoring and Private Sector Leasing (delivered on behalf of the City of Edinburgh Council).

We will also explore the potential for new commercial ventures to allow us to re-invest any surpluses into developing more homes and services.

We also look to grow the services we provide in-house. Two examples are Link Property and Linkscape.

offer planned maintenance as well as extended landscaping activities (via Linkscape) outwith Link.

Having been established in 2013, Link Property now provides repairs to Link, Horizon and Larkfi eld tenants. Following the successful roll-out in 2016 to deliver reactive and void repairs, and achieving ISO 9001:2015 quality assurance accreditation, Link Property will now also deliver kitchen and bathroom renewals. Next year, we plan to extend Link Property’s service to

Linkscape engages tenants in decisions about improving their local environment, empowering them to take more ownership of their neighbourhoods and providing resources to influence what improvements are to be made to the areas in which they live.

Linkscape’s help and are now being managed by tenant groups, one example being Hawthorn Gardens in Edinburgh. Its success was highlighted at the 2015 Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS) Scotland awards when it won the ‘Best Practice in Developing Communities’ award.

Several new community gardens have been established with

“These awardwinning services have helped us to improve not only customer satisfaction with repairs but also the neighbourhoods in which our tenants live.”

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

9

Community Building Link’s approach to community investment is in keeping with the Scottish Government’s strategy which ‘gives the framework for local action to tackle area inequality, create opportunities and improve communities’.

Our focus is on maintaining Link’s credentials as a community-orientated provider in its own right, and an organisation which supports local organisations and other social enterprises.

As a social enterprise itself, Link reinvests funds back into communities where there is an established social need.

We will continue to achieve this by delivering community events, developing community assets – including local capacity - and working with local partners to improve access to support and services.

We continue to recognise the increasing expectation that people will (or will have a requirement to) engage with services using online platforms. We also understand how being digitally-included opens up an

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

individual’s ability to access the employment market, advice, information, support and deal with Universal Credit applications.

We have been supporting the Scottish Government’s aim of increased digital participation by promoting a range of activities including Link’s laptop loan scheme, “techy tea parties” in sheltered housing developments, computer courses, low cost broadband for Link tenants and a digital employability training pilot.

At the other end of the digital spectrum, we are working with communities and other partners to bring forward the installation of community wi-fi initiatives with the aim of making broadband internet access available for free or at a very low comparative cost.

This year we will also launch our innovative Eldernet project that will both provide internet access to all 12 of Link’s sheltered housing complexes but also create a virtual ‘seniors community’ across the complexes supporting shared interests, hobbies and activities.

10

Alleviating inequality Working with our customers to mitigate the adverse impacts of Welfare Reform continues to be a priority.

Significant aspects of the Welfare Reform programme are yet to be implemented and further reforms have already been proposed by the UK Government. Whilst the Scottish Government may have powers under the Scotland Bill to change aspects of Universal Credit and disability benefits it is unclear what the proposals are and when they will be implemented.

The roll-out of Universal Credit and the capping of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) are the two greatest risks to securing rental income. As the implementation of Universal Credit progresses we will continue to support tenants to maximise benefit entitlement and manage their money and debts to minimise or eliminate rent arrears.

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

We also take a determined, coordinated and proactive approach to tenancy sustainment. We believe that this work begins at the point of allocating homes by ensuring a close match between the homes offered and individuals’ aspirations, and that advice, information and support is given to help tenants meet their obligations.

Link’s contribution to alleviating homelessness is well documented.

Link’s Private Sector Leasing contract accounts for around 3% of the private housing market in Edinburgh which accommodates around 1400 families and individuals who are in priority housing need.

For six years, Link has worked in close partnership with City of Edinburgh Council and continually reviews the needs of homeless people and the challenges faced in providing a supply of properties to meet the over burdened demand.

We also ensure that we continue to improve the energy performance of our properties and prevent fuel poverty for our tenants.

These commitments are a sound foundation to help us meet the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH) which aims to improve the energy efficiency of social housing in Soctland

“We have a wealth of knowledge and expertise across the group in welfare advice, care and support and tenancy sustainment as well as specialist knowledge and expertise in relation to homes and support for particular groups, such as the design and adaptation of properties and related advice and support services for older people and disabled people. ”

11

Employability We have made significant advances in contributing to Scotland’s employability agenda, matching our strategic approach with the Scottish Government’s Employability Framework.

Our Employability Strategy provides a framework to support the development of employment and training opportunities for tenants, service users and others in the communities that we serve.

“We recognise that the need for improving employability prospects for customers is key to building confidence and self-esteem, increasing individuals’ capability and developing independence”

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

This includes providing practical support through signposting to other organisations, extension of successful models of support such as our SmartLiving projects, delivering workshops, delivering nationally recognised qualifications, using our approach to community benefits in procurement (CBiP), providing work experience opportunities, offering mentoring support and taking advantage of external funding streams to increase our capacity to work across this range of activities.

We are delighted to annouce that this year, LinkLiving’s capacity to deliver employability services will expand, initially within the Falkirk area, with the launch of its employability academy.

12

Join us on our journey!

We are looking for people to join our development team as we look to deliver more than 3100 new homes in the next five years.

As an award-winning registered social landlord and social enterprise we are keen to attract people who share our vision of ‘improving the lives of more people’.

If you think you could be who we are looking for - please get in touch!

We are looking for people who are talented, motivated and committed to helping Link make a significant contribution to tackling the country’s affordable housing need.

Telephone 0330 303 0125

As one of the top 50 “Best Workplaces in the UK” in 2015 by the Great Places to Work Institute, we offer a competitive salary as well as a wide variety of benefits including flexi-time, flexible working, generous holidays, a contributory pension scheme, corporate clothing vouchers, an employee assistance programme and childcare vouchers.

Email jobs@linkhaltd.co.uk

We also support and encourage staff to reach, and exceed, their potential by our ongoing commitment to professional and personal development.

Website www.linkhousing. org.uk/careers

specialising in the housing sector

annual reports · brochures · marketing packs · tenant handbooks · newsletters · websites · interior dressing signage · display · vehicle livery · creative promotions · logo work

s inc e n in et een eig h t y n in e

Housing Scotland Spotlight | March 2017

www.framecreative.com

13

About us Link Group Ltd Owns the group’s housing stock and other assets. It provides Asset Management, Business Development and Support, Communications, Corporate, Development, Finance, Health and Safety, Human Resources, Information Systems and Technical services to the whole group. The Commercial Services division manages the Scottish Government’s Help to Buy and Open Market Shared Equity Schemes and provides factoring and property management services to Link-owned homes as well as delivering contracts in the private sector.

Link Housing Association Ltd (LHA) Is one of the largest organisations of its kind in Scotland. It is a multifaceted organisation providing quality services to tenants and owners living in various tenures including the Private Sector Leasing (PSL) scheme for the City of Edinburgh Council.

LHA has 12 sheltered developments and around 6500 rented homes in management. A specialist area of work is our accredited advice service which helps customers with benefit, welfare and money issues.

Link Property LinkLiving Ltd Provides person-centred care and support services to people who have a wide range of reasons for needing support, including mental health issues, homelessness, learning difficulties, physical disabilities, and vulnerabilities associated with older age. LinkLiving also supports people who are experiencing significant transitions in their lives such as young people leaving care or people who are at risk of homelessness.

Service provision includes care at home and housing support services comprising accommodation based and outreach support ranging from a few hours per week to 24/7 intensive support arrangements. LinkLiving’s service portfolio includes awardwinning volunteer and employability services in Falkirk, Fife and Edinburgh which have a proven track record in supporting people to develop their skills and confidence.

Is the governing subsidiary for Link’s In-House Trades Team. Link Property is non-charitable and provides property maintenance services to Link Group Ltd, Horizon Housing Association and Larkfield Housing Association. Link Property provides support to our environment engagement project Linkscape

Horizon Housing Association Ltd

Lintel Trust Became a subsidiary member of Link Group in February 2016. Lintel works with voluntary organisations and local communities throughout Scotland to help provide solutions for people in housing need. It awards grants to community and voluntary organisations for housing–related projects. Its aim is to encourage and enable individuals to live as independent a life as possible in their homes and to play an active part in their communities.

West Highland Housing Association Ltd (WHHA) Became a subsidiary member of Link Group in December 2014.

Based in Oban, its operating area covers Lorn and the Inner Hebridean Islands. WHHA is committed to providing high quality, affordable housing that meets local needs and which supports and helps fragile communities in the Argyll and Bute area. Working in partnership with Argyll and Bute Council, the Scottish Government, Link Group and others, WHHA plans to continue its significant development programme of new housing to contribute to broader aims of developing sustainable rural communities.

Promotes and provides affordable housing and services that enable people, irrespective of impairment, to live full independent lives in the community of their choice. Horizon owns 861 properties in 12 local Larkfield Housing authority areas across the central Association Ltd belt, integrating housing to meet Is a community-based Registered the specific needs of wheelchair Social Landlord operating in the users. Horizon also delivers factoring Larkfield area of Greenock. Larkfield services and Care and Repair THE JR GROUP ARE DELIGHTED TO SUPPORT LINK was formed in 1997 and owns or services onPARTNER behalfINofTHE West Lothian GROUP, OUR DELIVERY OF BEINN manages almost 1,000 properties and North DUBH VIEW-Lanarkshire A DEVELOPMENTCouncils, OF 5 RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES, LUSS. including Link Group’s tenancies in providing advice and assistance to Port Glasgow. over 4,000 older and disabled homewww.thejrgroup.co.uk owners annually.

THE JR GROUP ARE DELIGHTED TO SUPPORT LINK GROUP, OUR PARTNER IN THE DELIVERY OF BEINN DUBH VIEW- A DEVELOPMENT OF 5 RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES, LUSS.

JR GROUP ad

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

www.thejrgroup.co.uk 14

From chic apartments to family homes, Westpoint Construction build it all.

“We are proud to be associated with Link Group” Visit us: www.GasSure.com

Westpoint Construction Company (Scotland) Ltd build a range of exciting residential developments across Scotland using the finest quality materials and superior craftsmanship.

0141 644 2618 follow us like us www.westpointhomes.net

CONSTRUCTION

Your legal link.

At Harper Macleod we are proud of our role in supporting housing providers across the country and the ever-evolving services they deliver.

Pioneering organisations such as Link Group, whose social enterprises deliver such a wide range of innovative homes and services, need advice which meets their unique requirements.

MCTAGGART CONSTRUCTION ARE PROUD TO SUPPORT LINK GROUP WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP TOGETHER ON AWARD WINNING CONTRACTS

We have become the trusted advisers to many of Scotland’s leading housing providers by delivering practical and commercial solutions tailored to their needs.

To find out more about what we could do for you, contact Derek Hogg, Partner, at derek.hogg@harpermacleod.co.uk or call 0131 247 2543 harpermacleod.co.uk

Tod House Templand Road Dalry North Ayrshire KA24 5EU

Tel: 01294 832195

www.mctaggartconstruction.co.uk mail@mctaggartconstruction.co.uk

Driven to deliver

Are you ready for

EESSH? We are experts at helping our customers shape the service they require, and make a real difference to residents’ homes and lives, futureproofing your housing stock to EESSH: - EESSH delivery strategies & project design - Utilise our direct funding & works package - Identifying the correct mix of measures for your properties

To dicuss the impact of EESSH on your housing stock contact us on:

0800 19 777 55 or email us via: eessh@everwarmgroup.com

Link Group | www.linkhousing.org.uk

16