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Scottish Leaders List: tales of influence

Some of the senior figures in our Scottish Leaders List share their greatest success stories

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Scottish Leaders List: Tales of influence

Susan Aktemel - founding director, Homes for Good

Susan Aktemel - founding director, Homes for Good

It took me two years of rejection and lukewarm reactions to my idea of raising £6m to create a housing portfolio within the private rented sector aimed at people in receipt of benefits and low income, but I was sure it would work. So over 15 months I negotiated a joint venture and investment of £2m with Impact Ventures UK, a London-based social impact fund.

I have two proud moments associated with this: signing the legal agreements on 13 August 2014, then, the next day, picking up the keys for our first property.

It would have been easy to give up at any point in that long journey. Three years on, we have raised £8m and have 170 properties.

Bob Black - vice-president, Shelter Scotland, and former auditor general

Bob Black - vice-president, Shelter Scotland, and former auditor general

Of the several roles I took on after retiring as auditor general for Scotland, the one that gave me particular satisfaction was chairing the Scottish Commission on Housing and Wellbeing. In our report we linked the benefits of having a safe, secure and suitable home to the health and life chances of everyone in Scotland.

We worked hard to produce an action plan with recommendations we thought were affordable and important. Shelter Scotland produced a progress report and still uses it as a standard against which it can measure progress in Scottish housing policy. I believe the report had a positive impact on the future direction of housing policy in Scotland, although a lot remains to be done.

Lucy Fraser - head of innovation, Albyn Housing Society

Lucy Fraser - head of innovation, Albyn Housing Society

My proudest achievement to date has to be our unique collaboration with NHS Highland and modular construction pioneers Carbon Dynamic, which is on its way to developing a groundbreaking new approach to health, care and housing, which puts the customer first. The result of our partnership – the Fit Home – has the potential, through data capture and health analytics, to prevent episodes or events leading to ill health. This could ultimately enable people to live safely and independently in their homes and communities for longer.

It’s been a long journey; it has taken time to win the support of officials and funding bodies. Yet our persistence has paid off. Now we have secured support from Scottish ministers, several of Scotland’s innovation centres, the City Region Deal programme and several entrepreneurial bodies interested in our scalable social enterprise model.

Kristen Hubert - national manager, Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP)

Kristen Hubert - national manager, Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP)

Since the inception of the annual Scottish Empty Homes Conference in 2011, I’ve seen the community of empty homes professionals grow in both numbers and maturity. At first we were spreading the word about shared services and what could be achieved by full-time empty homes officers. Now there are 19 out of 32 councils with at least one dedicated empty homes officer, up from none when the SEHP started. It’s been great to be part of the growth of such a vibrant, creative community of professionals who have taken the ideas we started with in 2010 and transformed them into much more. There are now empty homes professionals from Scotland, not only winning awards at the Scottish conference but scooping UK-wide prizes and nominations at the English Empty Homes Conference: the same one I attended in my first year in the post to research best practice and apply to the Scottish context.

Seeing this evolution is what has made me the proudest.

Peter Martin - group director, development, Sanctuary

Peter Martin - group director, development, Sanctuary

The regeneration of Cumbernauld’s 12 high-rise blocks was a hugely complex project for us. The high-rises housed more than 500 flats – a mixture of owners, tenants and private landlords. We had to convince the local authority, Scottish Government and those directly affected by our plans that the demolition and replacement of these once-popular blocks was in everyone’s best interests.

At that time, Sanctuary was relatively new to Cumbernauld, so again we had to make the case that Sanctuary was best placed to deliver this ambitious regeneration.

An extensive consultation process with those affected resulted in 72% of ballot voters backing our new build proposals. The vast majority of owned flats have been bought back by Sanctuary, enabling us to move forward with the regeneration.

This £75m project continues apace thanks to the hard work of staff with further completions, decants and demolitions of the old 1960s blocks, and has provided the opportunity to develop and mentor team members, helping them to progress their careers. By mid 2018, all of Cumbernauld’s high-rise residents will be rehoused in new Sanctuary properties.

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL SCOTTISH LEADERS LIST

 

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