25 July 2003
Business consultant Peter Dixon is to be the new chair of the Housing Corporation. He will take over from Baroness Dean, who is standing down in October after six years in office.
Dixon, chair of the University College Hospitals London NHS Trust, has been a board member of different housing associations for more than 25 years, although his main background is in banking and industry.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who confirmed the appointment on July 21, said Dixon had a strong track record in leadership and delivery that would enable him to advance the government's housing policies.
Jim Coulter, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said Dixon's experience at an NHS trust had 'placed him at the heart of a complex public sector organisation where business skills and political sensitivity are paramount'.
During the 1970s, Dixon was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Islington, although the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister stressed that he has no present political affiliations. He was more recently a board member of the Anglia Housing Group and London and Quadrant Housing Trust.
His appointment came one week after it was revealed that Richard McCarthy, chief executive of the Peabody Trust and NHF chair, is to be the ODPM's first director general of sustainable communities.
McCarthy, who will take up the new post in October, said he was looking forward to 'turning the Communities Plan into reality'. He will be responsible for achieving house-building targets in London and the Southeast as well as for renewal in the Midlands and the North.
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