Affordable Housing And The Future Of Shared Ownership

We sat down with chief operating officer at St Arthur Homes, Doug Sargeant, to hear more about affordable housing and the future of Shared Ownership…

Doug, tell us a bit about your role at St Arthur Homes?

I am the chief operating officer. My job is to make sure that everything in the company is running smoothly. I sit somewhere in between cultivating our processes and making sure that people are in the right place at the right time, whilst also overseeing our new-build housing developments to make sure they are being delivered in the right way.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A normal week for me is spending three days in the office and two days out visiting sites or working from home. On a typical day, I am bolstering our operating model, be that refining a process that we have created or undertaking governance itself, which ensures that the company operates effectively. I am also dedicated to helping find new business. It’s a growing company so bringing new business onboard is everyone’s responsibility.

It is also important to maintain a presence on our building sites. We work with a number of developers and housebuilders who build and construct our homes. It is important to build a relationship with the site supervisors, you will often call on these working relationships when dealing with any working project, whether it is going well or not, ensuring these relationships are well tended too can make all the difference.

Do you face any challenges in your role?

Social Housing is a very heavily regulated sector, which can definitely present challenges. There is a government-appointed regulator of social housing and they have the authority to upgrade and downgrade organisations based on their quality of governance and how viable they are. We are a relatively small company at the moment but that doesn’t detract from the fact that we must ensure we are following the guidance and providing a transparent service for our board, customers and partners. The processes and procedures we have in place will be closely assessed which will have a massive impact on the trajectory of the business moving forward. I joined St Arthur Homes in mid-December and dealing with this level of regulation is something I haven’t come across before, but I am definitely enjoying the challenge.

What do you enjoy most about working at St Arthur Homes?

We are a team of 10 employees and everyone here is excellent at what they do and motivated to perform well. As a small company with big ambitions, it is important to work with a good group of people who are all committed to the same vision. Within my role, I am in a position where I can influence some of the ways that we do things. In previous jobs, it’s been frustrating when processes didn’t operate at optimum levels, however, I am now able to implement changes that improve efficiency, which is certainly more satisfying.

What about outside of work, what do you like doing in your spare time?

My Dad is a big inspiration for me, he is always busy learning new skills and turning his hand to something he hasn’t tried before. One thing that my Dad has always been really interested in is gardening, having trained as a gardener in Oxfordshire when he moved to New Zealand. Both Dad and Mum have given me a love for gardening. I love spending time outdoors. I’m also a big fan of heavy metal music! I love going to gigs, reading magazines and listening to all the latest releases as well as the classics.

What did your career progression look like before joining St Arthur Homes?

I’m originally from New Zealand so I attended school over there and worked in a few cafés and pubs before I travelled over to London with a friend. When I arrived here, I got a job at Notting Hill Housing Trust, now Notting Hill Genesis, where I was based in a call centre to contact tenants who had repairs completed to ask them to complete a survey. Although not my dream job, the great thing about working at Notting Hill was that there were plenty of opportunities for me to move around the business and move upwards. I worked there for seven years, starting out completing satisfaction surveys, to working in the repairs call centre and later to moving across to the development side of the business, working with the sales team and leasehold management team. The most rewarding role I had at Notting Hill was working as a housing officer in Earls Court where I helped to support people maintain their tenancies. This covered everything from managing lettings, repairs, rental arrears, and other tenancy issues. But it also came with a personal element to the job, meeting new people and in some cases you were the one person that day they would talk to – it was hard at times but certainly rewarding.

Why did you decide to leave Notting Hill?

I wanted to become a project manager, so I was interviewed by Arcadis, then EC Harris, and got a job as an employer’s agent. I was placed in in the affordable housing team based on my experience at Notting Hill. I learnt a lot at Arcadis, which helped me later secure a role as a senior property manager at Home Group.

How do you see Shared Ownership changing in the future?

Last year in England, the average house price increased by more than the average salary - we simply can’t live in a country where the average salary is dwarfed by annual house price inflation. This is going to make it increasingly hard for first-time buyers to get onto the property ladder. With Help to Buy drawing to a close, I think Shared Ownership will see a big increase in demand. Although the First Homes scheme has been recently launched, you need a much larger deposit to secure a home when compared to Shared Ownership on average. When people are struggling to save for a deposit, being able to purchase a small percentage of a home through Shared Ownership is definitely a more manageable option to consider.

And finally, can you tell us about St Arthur Homes’s affordable housing stock?

In total in England, around 50,000 affordable homes are built every year. The National Housing Federation say that we need to be delivering around 145,000 affordable homes. As non-profit housing associations are subject to several restrictions surrounding equity funding and borrowing, the maximum number of homes that they could ever deliver at full pelt is estimated to be 77,000 a year, so about half the number that is needed. As a private company committed to delivering Shared Ownership homes, we are in a good position to help make up some of this difference, and ultimately provide a secure route onto the property ladder.