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Clarion names winners of innovation prize
The UK’s largest housing association has announced the first winners of its £20,000 prize for innovation.
Clarion Housing Group launched the ‘William Sutton Prize’ in May this year.
It is named after the Victorian entrepreneur who founded the William Sutton Housing Trust, which has eventually merged into the 125,000-home organisation, and is intended to “promote innovation for public good”.
Community interest company Micro Rainbow International took the prize for Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation for a proposal aimed at increasing the number of safe homes for vulnerable LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees.
VeloCity, a group that works to redesign villages to have denser housing, promote exercise and end car dependency, was awarded the Excellence in Social Housing Design and Placemaking prize.
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Both winners received £20,000 to develop their projects from Clarion’s charitable foundation, Clarion Futures.
They were selected by a judging panel made up of Clare Miller, chief executive of Clarion; Clarion board members Peter Fortune and Greg Reed; Biljana Savic of the Academy of Urbanism; and Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK.
Clarion Futures plans to invest £150m over the next 10 years.
Ms Miller said: “I am thrilled that we will be supporting Micro Rainbow and the VeloCity team through the William Sutton Prize.
“Our winners are inspiring and innovative projects that have the potential to change thousands of lives.
“To have more than 80 applications in the inaugural year of the William Sutton Prize is very humbling.
“We have been blown away by the quality of and diversity of the applications from across the country.”
