Talking affordable housing with the BBC

Kate Ellison, Director of Land, Partnerships and New Business at Platform Housing Group was part of a national radio panel earlier this week discussing the challenges facing affordable housing

One of our senior colleagues took part in a live BBC radio programme to discuss the challenges facing affordable housing earlier this week.

Kate Ellison, Director of Land, Partnerships and New Business at Platform Housing Group was part of a group of guests on Wake Up To Money on 5Live as well as Radio 4’s Today programme talking about the challenges facing delivery and expectations ahead of next month’s general election.

Kate said : “It was a real honour to be invited to take part in a much needed debate on social housing, particularly as we head towards a general election.  A staggering 2.9million homes throughout the UK are owned by social housing providers such as us, which equates to around 12 per cent of all homes nationwide.  Here at Platform we build around 1600 homes every year, ranging from 20 up to 300 and across lots of different sites.  With the general election a mere few weeks away, we can’t stress enough how important housing needs are.  300,000 homes are needed each year to meet demand but as a nation we haven’t delivered this since 1969.

“We are in a housing crisis, brought about by year on year under delivery. The statistics are depressing but they don’t show the real impact of the crisis and what it means for people on a real local level.  Affordability levels differ for everyone; our role is to offer different solutions to meet these needs.

“Our key message is that we need a long term plan for housing which aligns with The National Housing Federation’s aim to end the housing crisis for good.”

We were approached to appear on the programme through our links with the Women in Social Housing Group, or WISH.

We're supporting The National Housing Federation’s #PlanForHousing campaign which is calling on the next government to fix the housing crisis.