Sugar Hill - rebuilding a community through regeneration

When we took over the development, trust from the local community was at rock bottom. Sixty households had been evicted. The 10 remaining on assured tenancies felt as though they’d been left in limbo and were anxious about the future of their homes and community.

We knew that building trust would be key to the success of the development, particularly for the 10 remaining households. We focused on two main areas to help us nurture those relationships. 

• Resident Liaison Officer 

On purchasing the site, our first priority was to appoint a Resident Liaison Officer. They became a single point of contact for residents and met with them regularly to share updates and chat through any worries or questions. Above all, we were clear with the ten households on assured tenancies that they would have a home in the new development. 

We held regular update meetings at a local venue to explain the process behind them moving into their new homes, covering the building procedure, legal issues and overall timelines.

We worked with each of the 10 households individually to understand their housing needs and preferences. This ensured they had some control and involvement. We were able to give all of them their preferred plot within the estate with their choice of kitchen units, carpets and some fitted appliances. We assessed any adaptation requirements and will ensure that these are in place ahead of the move. When the time comes to move in, we are organising this and managing the process and the costs.

We involved the residents in naming the new streets and are also going to be doing some local art projects. We have recovered some of the Airey concrete panels with the intention of creating some public sculpture or a raised planter/ street furniture as a lasting reference to the Airey Homes that once stood on the site. We know these hold dear memories for so many of the residents.

• Open and honest communications 

We made a commitment to our communications being friendly and empathic but also honest and transparent to develop residents’ confidence in us as their new landlord.

It was clear from the first conversations with the 10 remaining households that they had no confidence in what they had been told or advised about their actual home and living in the neighbourhood they had called ‘home’ for years. 

All 10 expressed high levels of frustration, anger and anxiety about being left in ‘limbo’ for many years. These feelings had been amplified as a result of the 60 households their former landlord had evicted as part of their plan to re-develop the neighbourhood for market sale of new houses.  

Setting up the Resident Liaison Officer as a single point of communication and contact was essential to re-building trust, with honesty and transparency at the heart of our relationship.    

We joined the established regular meetings between Leeds City Council and the Save Our Homes group to ensure that we understood their needs and worked collectively to ensure that previous evicted residents had the opportunity to return to live in the new development.

We also ensured that we communicated regularly and proactively with the local neighbourhood so they were well briefed on who we are and our plans for the redevelopment. This included holding local drop-in sessions to share information about the works and expected disruption. We also devised a dedicated web microsite which provided all current news, progress and information.

This is where our local roots and long-term commitment to the area supported our plans to create much needed affordable housing in the area.

Thanks to strong relationships, we were able to create a funding mix by understanding and working with the funding priorities of our partner agencies.

We were supported by funding from Homes England's Strategic Partnership within Accent Consortium as part of the government's Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26.

The development has also been awarded a grant of £2.8m from Leeds City Council to increase the provision of affordable rented homes across the new scheme. We topped up the funding with our own Recycled Capital Grant Fund.

As part of the Grant Agreement with Leeds City Council, we agreed to deliver 30 homes at Affordable Rent. These homes will be subject to a Local Lettings Policy, meaning ex-residents would have the opportunity to return to live in the community.

Despite being caught in the middle of an increasingly challenging economic climate with build costs increasing, the combination of funding enabled us to achieve financial viability. The real driver for the organisation and Board, however, was rebuilding a community and investing in the longer term.