In his first update as Chief Executive, John reflects on his first week at Southway Housing Trust and discusses challenges and future priorities.
Hello everyone,
It’s great to be here! A week in and I can honestly say that I feel right at home. Everyone has made me feel welcome and I am really excited about leading this fabulous organisation forward into its next chapter.
My first week as Chief Executive
This week I have spent lots of time meeting people and starting to understand more about how the business operates and some of the challenges and opportunities it faces. This has given me a good insight into our front-line services for tenants and it’s great to see the passion and enthusiasm for providing the best possible services to customers which will always be my number one property.
There was also an honest appreciation that in some areas we still face challenges that are impacting on services for our tenants which we will be addressing over the coming weeks and months.
I have every confidence that with the commitment shown, we will achieve this, and I am looking forward to working with colleagues and tenants to continually improve.
Still to come...
Over the next few weeks my diary is full of more meetings both internally and with key external stakeholders. The priority for me in these first few months is to gain as much insight into the organisation as possible from all angles before determining how best to take us forward.
One of the key pieces of work that I will be leading is Southway’s new five-year plan which will outline our priorities and aspirations for the future. Lots of work has already started on this and we are asking the views of staff, customers and stakeholders which will help shape our direction. In the first week of the consultation, we have already had over 200 responses from tenants to our survey which is great. The consultation will run throughout July so if you’re a tenant who’s not already had your say, please give us your feedback here.
It feels timely that I am new in post as we have a new government, with housing being the highest on the political agenda that I have ever known. It’s promising to see some early positive signs, including the government’s commitment to building £1.5million new homes over the next five years. Let’s hope that this leads to positive policy changes and a long term, sustainable plan to truly address the nation’s housing crisis. We will of course continue to play our part in this.
I look forward to meeting more people over the coming months and keeping you up-to-date with what’s happening at Southway.
John
