2007 Gold Awards winners to showcase skills at knowledge sharing event
Housing Corporation News Release
2007 Gold Awards winners to showcase skills at knowledge sharing event
29 October 2007 ref: 104/07
Winners of the Housing Corporation Gold Award 2007 will be showcasing their skills and experiences at a knowledge sharing conference in Manchester this week (Wednesday 31st October).
The three winners under the competition's empowering communities theme, London & Quadrant and Metropolitan Housing Trust, Poplar HARCA, and Willow Park Housing Trust will be on hand to provide delegates with the chance to find what they did to earn their awards and offer practical advice and tips.
A key focus of the day will be identifying common issues, developing shared solutions, overcoming barriers and developing strong peer networks.
Conference delegates will also have the opportunity to take part in interactive workshops which will explore the key messages presented by the 2007 Gold Award winners Empowering communities.
Award winning Guardian Columnist and broadcaster Polly Toynbee will be attending the event to provide her views on community empowerment. She will also be hosting a Q & A session with a panel made up of the speakers from the winning housing associations.
Housing Corporation Chairman Peter Dixon will be chairing this event.
The Gold Award knowledge sharing events are aimed at housing providers who seek to improve their performance or begin working in previously uncharted territory.
Ends.
Note to editors:
For press information please contact Sandra White on 0207 393 2094
1) The winners of the Gold Award 2007 environmental sustainability theme were:
London & Quadrant and Metropolitan Housing Trust
The Independent Kurdish and Turkish Residents Association was set up to address the needs of diverse communities and harder to reach communities in Enfield and Haringey.
It forms part of the Reaching Out project which was launched in 2002 in Edmonton, north London, to increase service use and community participation among the Kurdish/Turkish community.
The project provides a range of key services, including drop in sessions, monthly public information meetings on health, education, community safety and other issues. More than 200 people are involved in the project and nearly 1,000 people have used its services.
Poplar HARCA
Residents rule throughout the Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association (HARCA), which manages 8,000 former council homes in Tower Hamlets. Nine elected estate boards each manages a large slice of the annual mantainance budget, and residents’ groups tackle regeneration issues.
It is major success story. HARCA has spent money bringing the housing up to the Decent Home Standard. It has built six multi-use community centres with sports, social and training and nursery facilities, which have 90,000 visits a year and where 300 seperate activities take place every week.
Willow Park
Through a resident-led programme, the Willow Park Housing Trust has turned the most deprived ward in England, which was scarred by high levels of crime and unemployment and huge numbers of empty homes, into a settled community where only one per cent of the homes are empty and people are queuing up to live.
Willow Park Housing Trust was set up in 1999 to tackle the deep deprivation in the Benchill area of Wythenshawe. The Trust has created 400 new jobs, trained 800 men and women in construction skills and created 40 new businesses and three new social enterprises. The encyclopaedic list of partner organisations includes Manchester City Council, Manchester City Football Club, Sport England, faith groups and the Big Lottery Fund.
2. The Housing Corporation is the Government agency responsible for investing in new affordable homes and regulating over 1,500 housing associations across England. Its biggest ever investment programme of £3.9 billion for 2006-08 will fund 84,000 homes; 49,000 of these will be for affordable rent, and 35,000 will be for affordable sale through the Government's new HomeBuy initiative, helping people to get a foot on the property ladder.
3. The Housing Corporation is working with English Partnerships, the Audit Commission, and Communities and Local Government to establish the proposed new Homes and Communities Agency and the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords
