23 January 2004
Another major housing association is coming under close scrutiny by the Housing Corporation after admitting it faces difficulty meeting the decent homes target.
The Peabody Trust is having its performance reassessed just one month after announcing 51 redundancies, including nine in its development section. Future development work is being scaled back as the trust focuses on improving existing properties.
Peabody owns almost 20,000 homes in London – more than a quarter of which were built before 1900. It warned the corporation more than three years ago that it would have major problems hitting the target by 2010.
The trust estimates that it will cost £156m to upgrade about 8,000 homes that do not currently meet the standard, after already spending £48m during the past three years.
When the trust was assessed last September, it gained green lights in all four areas – financial viability, governance, management and development. But these are now being reviewed by the corporation and a new assessment is due to be announced shortly.
'We are looking at the situation,' said a corporation spokeswoman. 'The whole idea of this form of assessment is that it can be updated regularly as different situations arise.'
Peabody's troubles come two months after former chief executive Richard McCarthy left to be director of the Sustainable Communities Plan at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. His successor, Steve Howlett, takes over in March.
Acting chief executive Caroline Pickering declined to comment on what the trust described as 'speculation'.
Three months ago, England's largest registered social landlord, Places For People, was placed under supervision following rows among governors.
As it did not have a green light for governance, the RSL was forbidden from bidding for major development contracts.
PFjan2004
