BIH Housing Association - Annual Report and Accounts 2007/2008

The trend in rapidly rising land cost continued, decreasing our capacity to compete in a very difficult market place. Despite this, we endeavoured to deliver our programme, and were delighted to report at the year end that we had one of our most successful years ever, significantly exceeding our target for schemes starting on site.

The annual target starts for the supported housing team were 132 which was exceeded by 42 with 174 units commencing on site. We were also delighted that a Housing with Care Scheme [40 units] at Palmerston that we were delivering on behalf of Wesley Housing Association also commenced on site, making a total of 214 starts within the year.

Construction commenced on the following schemes:

14-20 University St [Homeless - 20 units]: This scheme is ideally situated within the University Quarter to meet the needs of homeless people who will be moving to longer term supported accommodation.

221 Holywood Rd [Elderly people - 32 units]: Construction commenced on site of 32 No. 2 bedroom apartments for active elderly people on a very attractive site adjacent to St Mark’s Church, Dundela. The Association is very aware that the local residents had issues with the scheme which they expressed through the Planning Service during the time of planning application. We have endeavoured to respond to their wishes as far as possible and trust that they have a greater sense of satisfaction with the scheme as it nears completion and that their reservations are unfounded.

1 Donaghadee Rd Groomsport [Elderly - 24 units]: The Association identified this site within Groomsport village to meet the housing needs of active elderly people. An additional adjacent site was acquired by our sister company BH Property which will enable us to develop 6 private apartments for the over 55’s thus achieving our objective of delivering mixed tenure developments where possible.

Belfast Rd and Inglewood Park, Bangor [Elderly - 39 units]: Two sites located close to Bangor town centre were acquired to provide accommodation for active elderly people in response to housing need and accessible to transportation, social and shopping facilities.

McAuley St Belfast [Apartments to Lifetime Home standard - 14 units]: The final phase of development at McAuley St inner city site commenced adjacent to the existing housing for elderly people at Hong Ling Gardens and Cromac Wood.

2 Brookhill Ave, Belfast [Elderly - 11 units]: A further development of accommodation for elderly people commenced to complement the Association’s developments within the Cliftonville area.

28 Cliftonville Ave [Homeless - 29 units] In partnership with Simon Community, BIH purchased existing satisfactory apartments to facilitate the provision of temporary supported housing for elderly people.

Bellevue Manor, Antrim Rd, Lisburn [Elderly - 19 units]: We responded to an opportunity to purchase 19 off the shelf apartments which were part of a development of 30 units thereby facilitating a tenure blind development which has been a very successful initiative in response to urgent housing need in the Lisburn area.

54 units were completed including the following schemes:

A development at Stewartstown Rd, Twinbrook in partnership with the Depaul Trust provides supported accommodation for homeless families and a scheme at Carrickfergus to provide temporary accommodation for women who have suffered from domestic violence marks our first development in partnership with the Cithrah Foundation. A further development for elderly people was completed at Shore Rd, Holywood which has proved to be a very popular location.

Schemes currently on site include two supported housing schemes at Ardaveen Pk, Bessbrook in partnership with the Southern Health Trust and Castlehill, Dungannon in partnership with Depaul Trust for homeless families.

A further two projects to meet the needs of elderly people are under construction at Donaghadee Rd, Bangor and Main St, Crumlin.

We were pleased to commence the re-development of Palmerston Residential Home on behalf of Wesley Housing Association.

Highlights of the year included a visit to Cloverhill [Stewartstown Rd] by Margaret Ritchie, Minister of Social Development, as well as our project at Stella Maris, Belfast for street drinkers being highly commended in the Jim Speers Housing Council Award and the a finalist in the UK Inside Housing Awards.

Despite the difficulties and challenges encountered in the housing market, we achieved a very satisfactory outcome to the year, comfortably exceeding our target thereby responding to identified housing need in areas such as Bangor and Lisburn which experience housing stress.

One further challenge which we, along with other housing providers faced was the limited Supporting People funding which has restricted the opportunity to provide supported housing schemes in response to identified need.

The support and co-opertaion of colleagues in NIHE, DSD, our partner organisations within the voluntary and statutory sector, as well as our team of consultants and contractors is very much appreciated.

We look forward to the year ahead and continue to meet housing need in association with our colleagues within the Abacus Consortium.

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