Gentoo unveils £417m five-year investment plan
Gentoo Group has unveiled a £417m investment plan to improve its existing homes and add 900 new affordable rented properties to its portfolio over the next five years.
The landlord’s latest business plan for 2019 to 2024 includes a £300m investment package to improve its existing homes, including £22m for double glazing, £38m for fire risk works and £100m on general repairs and maintenance.
It also plans to invest £117m to provide an additional 900 homes for affordable rent in Sunderland by 2024 via a mixture of new build and existing properties.
The company’s commercial arm, Gentoo Homes, will build more than 200 new homes for sale each year, which are expected to generate an annual profit in the region of £4m to subsidise the affordable homes plan.
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Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Gentoo, said: “Our five-year business plan is an ambitious programme of investment and housebuilding but our tenants are at its heart.
“We want to ensure our tenants’ voices are heard and they have the chance to influence and shape the services we deliver for them.
“Our property investment programme will also ensure they have the best quality homes possible in estates they are proud to call home.”
Gentoo Group manages more than 28,000 properties across Sunderland, and was established in 2001 after a stock transfer of homes from Sunderland Council.
The landlord has fought to recover in the past two years after a particularly turbulent period that culminated in a damning regulatory judgement in October 2016, in which the regulator accused it of a governance failure “at the most basic level” over staff payoffs.
The judgement also revealed that a “substantial number of properties” owned by the landlord failed to meet the Decent Homes Standard – the basic standard for quality in English social housing.
Mr Wilson took up his position as chief executive in January this year.
