Housing CEO celebrates new opportunity for property
Manningham Housing Association’s (MHA) chief executive claims 2025 must be the year for Labour to ‘inject real momentum’ into its housebuilding plans if they’re to meet targets.
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me and I’m feeling good! The lyrics to Nina Simone’s hit single perfectly capture Lee Bloomfield’s – chief executive of MHA – outlook on housing for 2025.
Image credit: Lee Bloomfield.
To mark the beginning of a new year, Bloomfield delivered a message which reflected on the ‘incredible achievements’ MHA had achieved over the previous 12 months. Some of these include being recognised as the first housing association worldwide to win the ISO 30415 accreditation for HR and diversity and inclusion and partnering with the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund to upgrade a number of their homes.
What’s more, 2024 also saw the delivery of 20 new affordable homes in Keighley – MHA is a Bradford-based organisation.
Despite these achievements, Bloomfield stressed that his organisation are determined to deliver many more properties this year in a bid to help the government achieve their promise to provide 1.5 million new homes within the next five years – a pledge that has previously faced a vast amount of criticism.
‘Last month, we were privileged to host strategy and policy staff from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in Bradford and Keighley as part of the Social Housing Immersion Programme,’ Bloomfield said. ‘We made clear that MHA stands ready to help in any way we can to help the government deliver its promise of 1.5 million new homes within five years.’
‘Whilst ministers have faced criticism for the direction taken in some areas of policy, I believe the tone and approach they have adopted in relation to housebuilding has been impressive,’ Bloomfield added.
‘But with the clock ticking, they must inject real momentum into the process by swiftly enacting the planning legislation they have talked up before getting actual shovels in the ground.’
Previously former governments have frequently missed housing targets and the most recent study from Centre for Cities shows that even if private housebuilders match their best for the next five years, Labour will still miss its housebuilding target by 388,000 – unless planning reform goes further than current proposals.
In spite of the bleak estimate, Bloomfield remains optimistic. He said: ‘A new year brings new hope, new aspiration and new energy – nowhere more so than Bradford UK City of Culture 2025.
‘The sincere wish of everyone in the housing sector must be that this new year will herald a new dawn in the delivery of new homes.’
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