Nilam Buchanan: ‘It was quite rash, really’

This experience became the foundation for Ms Buchanan’s lifelong career in development. Her current role is regional managing director for Central and North at Places for People.

We met over video call as part of Inside Housing’s series on women in development, to talk about how she got into development.

After Greenham Common, Ms Buchanan and her family moved to Derby. Life moved on as she grew up and her parents settled into UK life. Getting into development as a career wasn’t a given for her, though.

Looking back, Ms Buchanan can see the connecting strand of housing emerge throughout her life, but as a teenager in the 1980s, deciding what to study at university, she was set on becoming a physiotherapist.

“He told me about the treatment of Ugandan Asians when they came to the UK in terms of housing options. It made me reflect on what had happened to me as a child and what happened to the family”

It wasn’t until a housing officer from the local authority came to give a talk to her sixth form that she began to think more deeply about how her family had been treated when they came to the UK.

“He told me about the treatment of Ugandan Asians when they came to the UK in terms of housing options. It made me reflect on what had happened to me as a child and what happened to the family,” she says.

Back at home, she spoke to her parents about it. “I said, ‘But did you know that we were going to get a council house? And Dad said, ‘Yeah, we knew we were going to get council housing’,” she says.

But they didn’t. In the wake of public backlash against Ugandan Asians being given council homes, Ms Buchanan and her family were no longer eligible and had to find a privately rented home.

“Coming to the UK was a solution, and the fact that we didn’t get a council house and we had to rent privately was just another challenge to overcome, and you just got on with it,” she says.

Despite having a place lined up to study physiotherapy at the University of Manchester, after that chance conversation with the housing officer, she changed her mind. 

How did her parents – who were both keen for her to work in the medical field – react?

“Dad was very supportive. Mum was very concerned I was making a decision on a whim,” Ms Buchanan says. “I don’t think Mum understood the decision as much as Dad. But Mum’s always been the driver when it comes to education and attainment.”

Despite some misgivings, both parents ended up supporting her. She took a year off and went to Sheffield instead to complete a housing studies course.

“It was quite rash, really,” she smiles.

Choosing development

In 1989, Ms Buchanan left university with no fixed idea of what part of the housing sector she wanted to work in. “I got a number of interviews, got offered a job as a housing officer, but I also got offered a job as a development assistant for United Kingdom Housing Trust, which was quite a unique set-up.”

In 1987, UKHT had agreed a £200m deal with Sheffield Council to build 2,000 social homes in five years, using loans from several banks rather than grant funding.

“At UKHT, there was a passionate vibe about delivering housing, and it was exciting,” she recalls. It was challenging too, “partly because construction sites in the late ’80s, early ’90s were not particularly female-friendly”. 

But alongside that, there were people within the housing sector who were allies. “Often they were the men, because they were men who had worked in development. It was very much a male-orientated business then.”

In 1990, shortly after Ms Buchanan joined UKHT, it became part of North British Housing Association, which in turn rebranded as Places for People in 2000.

“I’ve continued to work in the development bit of the business, but doing slightly different roles,” she says.

In 2018, she became head of development at the landlord, and in 2020 managing director for Central and North.

The past five years in the role have been “amazing”, she says. “We’ve been able to replicate delivering housing at scale.”

“We do our own direct delivery. We’ve got our own site teams. We’ve got the opportunity to make available opportunities for women to join us.”

There’s more to do, she adds. “I’d love to have loads more women, loads more young people coming through into development, into construction, and we are getting that.”

That allyship is vital, she explains. “It’s really key that men do that for women, particularly in the construction and development industry.”

But housing is “still quite an unknown field”, Ms Buchanan admits. “People don’t think of housing as a natural career, do they? They’re not aware of the opportunities that are available in housing, and the range of jobs you can do.”

Family connections

In October this year, Ms Buchanan will have been working in development for 36 years. What has kept her in the field for so long?

“It’s always been really interesting,” she says. “Places for People has always been innovative, always challenging itself about how to deliver affordable housing and do things better. It’s made me stay.”

There was a moment when she thought she might join a private developer, but her parents reminded her why she got into the sector in the first place. Her mum told her to stay, she says.

“My dad said, ‘But you’ve always wanted to do social housing.’ We’ve always talked about the importance of social housing and what it means for community and what it means for people. And so I stayed.”

Some of her development schemes have even brought her full circle, back to Derby and her family. Places for People is working with developer Keepmoat on a former Rolls-Royce site in the city, where her dad used to be employed.

“I go home virtually every weekend to see Mum, and I often drive around there. She loves seeing the new houses,” Ms Buchanan says.

She has even managed to rope her children into development. “My kids all laugh about the fact that we’ve always driven around sites, and they’ve always gone to demolitions.”

When one of the tower blocks in Norfolk Park, a 1960s estate in Sheffield, was demolished, she took her young daughter along to watch.

“There’s a picture of my daughter, Emma, two-and-a-half years old, at the demolition,” she says. “It’s a really cute photo. All you can see behind her is all this rubble.” The press called her “demolition girl”.

After a life spent in development, what does Ms Buchanan have her sights on next? “I’m coming to the end of my career and part of my fear about retiring is what will not being in housing mean for me? It’s such a big part of my life.”

She does have some advice for the generations that follow her. “The one thing I would say is take every opportunity that’s offered to you and try not to talk yourself out of it, because that’s so easy to do – particularly for women,” she says.

“If you don’t achieve it, or you don’t do as well as you think, you’ve probably done better than you think. And next time, it’ll be easier.”