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Wherry Housing Association

Wherry Housing Association was formed following the transfer of 3715 homes from Broadland District Council on 4th April 1990. We currently own and manage 6,906 homes in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. We are a member of the Circle Anglia group and benefit from financial strength of the group to provide development and re-investment in a local context, focussing on quality and creativity to deliver communities where people want to live and work.

Our office is in East Norwich and is located in the Broadland district of Norfolk, where we have the most stock (3845 homes) and are the predominant landlord. We want to be close to our largest customer base to maintain our strong local presence. Although the district adjoins the greater Norwich urban area, the district is very rural with geographically dispersed housing stock.

Wherry Housing Association is a founding member of the Norfolk RSL alliance that brings together the ten major RSL’s in Norfolk that promote, contribute to and influence the delivery of housing and sustainable communities in Norfolk. We are working in partnership with other Norfolk RSL’s to trial alternative heating systems for rural housing stock.

A recent study by the Smith Institute confirms that the social housing sector provides homes for many least advantaged households. This judgment covers factors such as low incomes; worklessness; insecure employment; low levels of tangible assets; lack of qualifications; mental health problems; incidence of lone parents; long term sickness and also disadvantaged BME groupings. Our own experience also includes an increasing proportion of older tenants with disabilities. It is the regular presence of several of these factors in a single household that leads to deprivation. However, this offers us as landlord the opportunity to put together; target and deliver a range of measures which together can improve overall life chances.

Within our housing stock we have 1250 homes that are off the gas network with either electrical, oil or solid fuel heating. Rising energy costs coupled with the economic downturn is impacting significantly on our residents, particularly those in more rural locations. Whilst we are investigating various alternative heating types, we feel that we have a wider commitment to existing and future generations to plan for the post fossil fuel age.

As a progressive RSL, striving to be a nationally recognised, excellent provider of affordable housing we want to investigate different retrofit refurbishment methods and create innovative funding partnerships to maximise the benefit of a future affordable warmth programme, to as many of our residents as possible. We see ‘Greening the Box’ as the catalyst that brings together stakeholders in the social industry to actively improve the life chances of many least advantaged households in rural locations.

We are proud to working with both Broadland District Council and SEArch on this innovative project.

View the Wherry Housing Association website here.