Origin Housing started life in 1924 as St. Pancras House Improvement Society, a charitable organisation founded by Father Basil Jellicoe because of a belief that 'housing is not enough’. Our vision of ‘great homes; positive people; strong communities’ remains at the core of everything we do as an organisation and shapes how we manage our homes to ensure our residents are proud to live in them.
Ultimately our goal remains the same; to ensure we continue to build great homes for the people who need them most, maintain and improve our existing homes, while supporting our communities to thrive.
Throughout the year, we continued to invest over £2m across a range of projects. We invested over £500k in energy- efficient boiler replacements to ensure our residents benefit from lower bills and a reduced carbon footprint along with over £1 million on safer, more secure door replacements. We also invested over £500k to ensure our lifts and
electrical systems are all as reliable and safe as possible.
In 22/23 we started work to improve our data on the thermal efficiency of our homes along with setting up a damp and mould taskforce to help ensure we have all the information we need to help keep our residents’ homes warm and dry throughout the colder months. We’ve also upgraded homes installing 89 new kitchens and 108 new bathrooms for our residents. We’ve now allocated 400% more funding to complete more work to upgrade homes in 2022/23, having reduced the budget in previous years to ensure we could focus on essential fire safety work.
Keeping our residents and their homes safe
Building and fire safety remain our top priority for all of our homes and the residents that live in them. We committed the majority of our resources throughout the year to continue to invest heavily in meeting and maintaining best
practice in building safety standards for both our new and existing homes. Spending £8.8m on fire safety, completing 302 in-depth fire risk assessments and eleven intrusive surveys in line with new fire safety standards.
We have invested £20m on fire safety over the last four years in our existing buildings. This includes upgrading or replacing over 1,400 fire doors and we've allocated a further £50-£60m over the next five years in order to meet changing fire safety requirements. Our fire safety plan is in place, and is due to conclude within the next 10 years. We have suitable Fire Risk Assessments on all our buildings which are regularly updated by our expert Fire Safety Team, and our Building a Safer Future project is on track to ensure our buildings are as safe as possible. The recommendations from our Fire Risk Assessments can be quickly accessed through our residents’ portal and are continually updated throughout the year.
“I am grateful for the passion and dedication shown by the Building a Safer Future team. It finally feels as if Origin are listening to its residents. Dealing with some developers must be extremely frustrating, yet your determination is seeing results”
Keeping our residents safe in their homes and ensuring we are proactively managing any risks is both a priority for the organisation and something we need to do by law. As a responsible landlord we inspect and maintain things like boilers, electrical safety and asbestos that could be a danger to a household to make sure it's all as safe as possible.
