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Meet Homes England’s five new regional directors
Homes England’s new regional model aims to link development and regeneration more closely to local priorities and devolved leadership, led by five new executive regional directors. Eliza Parr met all five to find out more about their plans for the role
Homes England’s new regional model aims to link development and regeneration more closely to local priorities and devolved leadership, led by five new executive regional directors #UKhousingLast month, Homes England revamped its operating model. The agency rolled out a new regional structure, decentralising some of its operations to five teams across the country.
The new model is part of a move to focus much more on place-based partnerships, and to work hand-in-hand with mayors and local leaders. Homes England hopes this will mean development and regeneration schemes better reflect local priorities, and also link into economic growth in each region.
This regional focus has not come out of nowhere. More and more power has been devolved to elected mayors and strategic authorities in England over the past decade. This was cemented at the end of last month, when the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed into law, giving authorities with elected mayors more powers over housing and economic regeneration.
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Homes England signalled its willingness to work with mayors last year by earmarking funds specifically for combined authorities under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) for the first time. This gives mayors a seat at the table and more say over how and where affordable housing is built in their areas.
But what does this mean for social housing providers? Homes England has been driving home the message that the new regional model will streamline the support it provides to partners. Instead of having to navigate the internal workings of the agency, housing associations and councils can knock on a single front door: their new regional team.
Each of the five regions has a new executive regional director who will be responsible for the development pipeline in their patch. Inside Housing sat down with each of them over the past few months to find out more about their priorities.
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Vicky Savage, executive regional director for London and East
Danielle Gillespie, executive regional director for the North West
Jo Nugent, executive regional director for the Midlands
Tom Bridges, executive regional director for the North East, Yorkshire and Humber
Vicky Savage, executive regional director for London and East
While new to Homes England, Vicky Savage is certainly no stranger to the social housing sector. She spent 11 years in development roles at housing association Network Homes (which later merged with Sovereign), and a further seven at L&Q as executive director of development and sales. In each of those years, L&Q topped Inside Housing’s Biggest Builders list, completing 2,313 new homes in 2024-25.
After leaving the London housing association in 2025, she had a five-month stint as director of development for the London Borough of Camden, until her new Homes England role began in April.
“I’ve landed in my kingdom – everyone else has this same passion for ‘let’s deliver, let’s deliver at scale, at pace’”
What drew her to the role? “One of the reasons I joined was around my own passion for building homes, for building places, and for improving life outcomes. And I sort of feel I’ve landed in my kingdom – everyone else has this same passion for ‘let’s deliver, let’s deliver at scale, at pace’.”
Her experience in the sector will no doubt come in handy. “I’ve been on the other side,” Ms Savage says, when we speak on a Teams call at the end of April. She understands “what the developers need and the challenges of delivering large and at scale”.
While her patch includes London, Ms Savage recognises that there are “high levels of devolution” to the Greater London Authority (GLA) in the capital.
“I know first-hand how difficult it is to [develop] in London. It really is problematic for a whole raft of different reasons. I know the people at the GLA, I’ve worked with them for years, so I’m really hoping that can be a very strong relationship going forward,” she says.
She is hoping to work closely with the GLA on London’s new towns in Enfield and Thamesmead. Beyond London, two other new towns on the government’s shortlist fall within Ms Savage’s patch: Tempsford and Milton Keynes.
“One of my big priorities in my region are the new towns… I’ve had many meetings on those key strategic schemes already.”
In her first few weeks at Homes England, Ms Savage says she has been “absolutely inundated by local authorities, private developers and people who are looking to innovate around housing”.
“I think one of the reasons why we are inundated is we all accept that it’s challenging times to build. So the partners will be looking to us in terms of viability and viability gaps. And we are saying we have a whole toolkit of different products that we can offer,” she says.
Ms Savage hopes her team can offer blended interventions to partners to get projects off the ground.
“The message at all levels is that we’re very much open for business,” she adds.
Danielle Gillespie, executive regional director for the North West
Danielle Gillespie was still at university at Liverpool John Moores when she got her first job in the sector, working weekends at housing association Riverside’s call centre. It was just a “way to make ends meet”, she says, but she ended up getting “hooked on housing regeneration”.
After graduating, she scrapped her plan to work as an investment banker in London and decided to stay at Riverside in Liverpool, her home town, on a graduate scheme.
Since then, she has worked as a consultant in housing and regeneration, and then at Homes England (and its previous iteration, the Homes and Communities Agency) for 16 years. Most recently, she was director of regeneration, partnerships and major projects at the agency.
Alongside this, she has served as a board member of the Stockport Mayoral Development Corporation, which oversees the oft-cited regeneration success in Greater Manchester, since 2019.
Fitting, then, that her new role will see her focus on housing across the North West. The region “consistently meets and exceeds its housing delivery commitments”, Ms Gillespie tells Inside Housing.
“I think that we are already punching above our weight in the North West in terms of delivery, but there’s an appetite to go further.”
Given her career so far, it’s no surprise that Ms Gillespie intends to keep regeneration high on her agenda in this new role, as well as across Homes England more widely, as she tells Inside Housing when we find time to speak in a quiet room at the MIPIM property trade show in Cannes in March.
But she recognises the challenges in delivering long-term regeneration schemes.
“One of the things that we have to balance is how much of our efforts go into large-scale regeneration activities and how much of our activities are focused on smaller-scale schemes that keep the market moving, providing homes. And that’s a constant wrestle, really, within the funds that are available, but [there is] a focus on both.”
Ms Gillespie highlights the opportunities for her team in the North West, given its history with devolution; Greater Manchester was the first area to establish a combined authority.
“It’s not as simple as just numbers in the North West. It’s really around homes in context, aligned to economic growth strategies”
“I think, particularly in the North West, there’s a real spotlight on devolution, ways of working, and how we really maximise that triangle of: combined authorities, the role of a national housing and regeneration agency that works locally, and the sector.
“[We need to come together] to make sure that investment is focused in a way that delivers for [the] government and partners, but also achieves the social policy outcomes that we’re seeking on the ground,” she says.
Ms Gillespie stresses the maturity of relationships between partners.
“I think there’s maturity in the devolution space, but there’s also maturity in the sector, [among] some of the housing associations – well-established, proven track records of delivery, extensive property holdings across the North, [real commitment] to the North West region, and an appetite to go further.”
To ramp up ambition, Ms Gillespie says her team will be focused on mixed-tenure communities, and will explore how different tenure options can support the economic growth prospects of the region.
“It’s not as simple as just numbers in the North West. It’s really around homes in context, aligned to economic growth strategies, aligned to inclusive growth strategies, aligned to industrial sectors and clusters,” she adds.
Alongside her new regional director role, Ms Gillespie will continue to lead on Homes England’s work on new towns.
The North West is home to one of the new town locations on the government’s current shortlist: the Manchester Victoria North development and densification, which will deliver at least 15,000 new homes. Ms Gillespie says she will be keeping “a particularly keen eye” on this location.
Jo Nugent, executive regional director for the Midlands
Jo Nugent is a “very, very proud Brummie”. A town planner by profession, she has around 20 years in local government under her belt. During her time in local authorities, she worked on major regeneration projects and local plans. This gave her plenty of experience in how to use land to bring forward economic growth, she says, as well as work with housing associations.
Ms Nugent joined Homes England in 2021 and was most recently acting executive director of markets, partners and place, where she led on the agency’s strategic place partnerships and National Housing Delivery Fund.
Having spent most of her career in the West Midlands, Ms Nugent is excited that this role will present an opportunity to work further afield, and has spent the past couple of years getting to know key partners in the East Midlands.
She describes the Midlands as a “region of [real] contrast”, which she sees as an opportunity rather than a barrier. It includes “some really densely populated urban areas” and “a number of really important cities for the UK generally”.
“So we’ve got the challenges that come with trying to deliver in an urban setting – be they land values, infrastructure delivery, former uses, issues around remediation, contamination – and then we’ve got all of the new settlement opportunities that exist in many of the county areas in our more greenfield locations,” Ms Nugent tells Inside Housing when we meet at MIPIM 2026.
Current projects include Worcestershire Parkway, an expanded development scheme that didn’t make the government’s new towns shortlist, as well as urban extensions in Lincoln and Fairham outside Nottingham.
Homes England can play a role across different types of development depending on need, Ms Nugent says, whether that’s debt via the new National Housing Bank, recoverable grant, or de-risking through land assembly.
Ms Nugent says she and her team are looking forward to working with strategic partner housing associations under the SAHP, but she is also interested in working with “different scales of housing associations” on specialised and rural housing.
“Sometimes it feels like we’re in the middle of the country, and maybe some of the opportunities go north or south of us. But actually, we’ve got fantastic opportunities in the Midlands”
“We want to support homes of all quantities, and particularly where there might be very localised housing needs, so rural housing, for example.
“Particularly in my geography, I’ve got county authorities, large swathes of the Midlands is rural, so that’s quite important for me, and also specialised housing, [for example] older persons’ homes. So I think there’s that bit that we want to target around the housing associations,” she says.
Ms Nugent will be looking to attract larger developers and investment institutions to “work in some areas of the country where maybe they haven’t yet had experience”. She says her team will seek to “demystify some of the market, or perceptions” of core cities in the Midlands, including Birmingham and Nottingham.
Ms Nugent hints at the need to create an even playing field between the regions.
She tells Inside Housing: “Sometimes it feels like we’re in the middle of the country, and therefore maybe some of the opportunities kind of go north of us or south of us. But actually, we’ve got some fantastic opportunities in the Midlands.”
She thinks there is a perception that the region is “a little bit quieter than the other localities, but actually, we’re just rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it. And I know pan-Midlands political leaders are looking at where those opportunities exist.”
Tom Bridges, executive regional director for the North East, Yorkshire and Humber
A town planner and economist by background, Tom Bridges spent most of his career working as a director at engineering consultancy Arup in London and Leeds.
Between 2012 and 2017, he was chief officer for economy and regeneration at Leeds City Council, where he set up a “single housing-growth team” which brought different parts of the local authority together to drive housing delivery and housing-led regeneration.
Mr Bridges is “really proud of what [the team] achieved”, noting that Leeds now delivers around 4,500 new homes every year. He moved to West Yorkshire from London 20 years ago, and says Leeds is “now very much home”.
Speaking to Inside Housing on a Teams call at the end of April, he says he is ambitious and positive about the future of the North of England.
“I’m committed to working to help the North of England succeed, and I’m a real believer in the power of positive public-sector leadership and intervention on housing regeneration, infrastructure, economic growth, to support our great towns and cities and places in the North of England in what is a significant economic transition.”
Just two months into the role, Mr Bridges says he has been “absolutely blown away by the strength, depth, breadth of technical and broad capability” of Homes England. He has also been struck by the eagerness of mayors to boost housing-led regeneration.
“When I talk to mayors, when I talk to chief executives of combined authorities and local authorities, they see housing-led regeneration, and economic development and economic growth as two sides of the same coin.
“They know that, in the context of rapid economic change, regenerating places and creating a housing offer that can attract and retain a skilled workforce… is so important, particularly here in the North of England, where we’ve got a housing offer that’s a legacy of a previous economy, and is not always suitable for a modern economy.”
“In the context of rapid economic change, regenerating places and creating a housing offer that can attract and retain a skilled workforce is so important, particularly here in the North of England”
Regeneration is no doubt high on Mr Bridges’ agenda. He also has a strong focus on sites that “may be stalled for some reason”.
“In the context of a volatile market and a volatile macro-economic situation, [we want to] get and stay really close to those developers and [registered providers] to make sure we’re unblocking blockages, tackling viability issues,” he says.
When it comes to Homes England grant funding in his region, Mr Bridges says the SAHP has a “fantastic level of ambition. Certainly, the level of ambition I’m seeing from our mayors and our local authorities is very high.”
Affordable housing is “absolutely fundamental to what we’re trying to do”, Mr Bridges says, as it is “important in its own right”, but also to create the right balance for mixed communities.
In the North East and Yorkshire, housing need is acute. Mr Bridges highlights that over 2,500 households are in temporary accommodation, which costs local authorities well north of £80m a year. More than 275,000 households are on social housing waiting lists.
When it comes to engagement with housing associations, Mr Bridges says he wants to “work really collaboratively, but in a really delivery-focused way. What I’d say to housing associations, to local authorities, to developers, is that your success is our success at Homes England.”
Kate McBride, executive regional director for the South
Kate McBride has been at Homes England for almost 10 years, most recently as regional development director for the South. Before this, she worked at the Homes and Communities Agency and the South East England Development Agency.
Ms McBride is a town planner by background and started her career as a principal planner at GVA Grimley, which later became part of property services firm Avison Young.
When we speak on a Teams call in April, a few weeks into her new role, she highlights the variety across her patch, which stretches from Kent all along the M4 to Tewkesbury, and right down to Cornwall.
“It’s a big geographical patch, which is really interesting, because I think the challenges are different in different parts of the geography,” she says.
This includes “really stark affordability challenges” in some areas, particularly around the South East, as well as deprived areas on the South East coast. Ms McBride points out that the South of England “isn’t as progressed in terms of having mayoral authorities yet”, which makes it different to the other four regions.
“I’ve noticed already that having the full suite of interventions all available in one place in that region is really strong and really positive for partners”
There are emerging combined authorities in Hampshire and the Solent and Brighton and Sussex. “That is devolution being progressed that I need to probably lean into quite a lot, as it’s early days there,” Ms McBride says.
She also says Plymouth and Bristol, two of the region’s biggest cities, are “absolutely up there in terms of priorities for the South”, as well as the West of England Combined Authority. At the UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) last month, the West of England mayor announced the region’s first mayoral development zone, which will cover its new town in South Gloucestershire.
Ms McBride says her conversations around affordable housing are still in the early days, but “I’ve noticed already [that] having... the full suite of interventions all available in one place in that region is really strong and really positive for partners”.
“The regional model has been something that has been talked about for a very long time. So it’s now here, and people are desperate to get in and speak, to have the right contact,” she adds.
Danielle Gillespie, Jo Nugent and Tom Bridges are speaking at Housing 2026, 23-25 June at Manchester Central. Find out more and book your delegate pass here.
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