Torus housing group celebrates two year achievements

IT’s been two years since Warrington social landlord Golden Gates Housing Trust joined forces with Helena Partnerships to form housing group Torus.
The new group was established with a commitment to building more homes and improving opportunities for local people.
Two years on, how has the group performed?
Torus group chief executive Rob Young said: “To say the last two years have been busy is an understatement.
“We’ve brought together two organisations and more than 900 people. We’ve aligned our services, faced numerous external challenges and I’m proud that our staff have never, for a moment, lost sight of our vision to build homes and opportunities for our customers.”
Being part of Torus enabled Golden Gates to secure funding for its first development of new homes at Howson Road, Orford.
This was quickly followed by more homes and apartments at Howley Quay and the group has recently welcomed tenants to their new homes at the £10m, 104 unit development at Ash Acre Meadows in Latchford.
Across town, in Dallam and Bewsey, construction of homes and retail units is also underway at Harrison Square.
Torus set itself an ambitious new build target of 1,600 homes by 2020 and is poised to smash that target by nearly 300. By March this year, the group had delivered around 900 new homes and has another 1,000 in the pipeline.
The new homes will be a mix of one, two and three bed apartments, houses and bungalows. These will be offered for affordable rent and shared ownership, also known as part buy/part rent, which helps potential buyers get onto the property ladder in an affordable way.
Mr Young said: “There’s a desperate shortage of quality affordable homes in the region but we are committed to doing our bit to address it. We are building the right homes in the right places and giving more people the opportunity to rent or buy a new home easily and affordably.”
Locally, changes to welfare and benefits continue to have a significant impact on many of the group’s tenants and Torus is working hard to tackle this.
They’ve helped tenants face the challenges of the new Universal Credit system, changes to the Local Housing Allowance and the Benefit Cap. This month also sees the introduction of new, improved support services for older people which will enable them to stay in their homes for longer.
Mr Young concluded: “Since 2015 our employment teams have helped almost 1,000 people into work and attracted £10m in investment to help people in Cheshire brush up their digital skills, improve their confidence and become work ready.
“Each new home we build and every work or training opportunity we create contributes to the regeneration and revitalisation of local areas and that’s a fundamental part of what we want to achieve.
“We’re proud of what we’ve achieved in two short years and there’s a lot more to come.”