We are delighted to welcome Andium Homes to the Eurhonet community – the first Eurhonet member from the Channel Islands. Andium Homes is located on the Island of Jersey – a British Crown Dependency. We are looking forward to sharing knowledge, learning new best practices, and getting to know more about the work of our colleagues in Jersey. To find out more, we spoke to Lindsay Wood, Chief Finance and Operations Officer.
Lindsay Wood
Chief Finance and Operations Officer, Andium HomesWelcome to Eurhonet! Can you tell us a bit about your organisation?
“Andium Homes provides high quality social rented housing for more than 10,000 people across 4,900 homes, on the Island of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. Jersey is a British Crown Dependency located in the English Channel, with a population of approximately 100,000 people.
Andium Homes is a wholly Government-owned company with our own Board of Directors. We are a not-for-profit business; a Company limited by Guarantee and make a significant financial return to the Government.
Alongside our 4,900 rental homes, we also offer an Assisted purchase home ownership scheme for first-time buyers: Andium Homebuy. Buyers can purchase a home and defer 25% of the sale price with no deposit required.”
What is your background, and how did you end up working in social housing?
“I was brought up in the North of England, moving to Jersey 17 years ago, attracted to the warm climate, beautiful beaches and friendly community.
A role as an accountant with PwC brought me to the Island initially. And then one day I saw an advert to join a team of housing professionals to create a new and innovative way of delivering housing on the Island. I convinced them to let me join the team and I developed the business model whilst learning about the unique political environment on the Island.
Andium Homes was born, and so was my housing journey.”
What does social housing mean to you?
“Social housing is ultimately about helping people. Everyone instinctively knows how important a home is – social housing is about improving people’s lives by providing good quality homes and security of tenure.
In Jersey, there is limited space (we are only 9×5 miles) and so providing homes the Island needs is a significant focus for us. The access criteria to our homes was initially very restricted, but we have delivered a significant number of new homes which is enabling more people to benefit from the security a social landlord provides. We have also helped many first time buyers on to the property ladder and will continue to do so in greater numbers.”
What are the best and most challenging aspects of your role?
“The best part is knowing our social purpose means our sole focus is to help people. I also enjoy working with such a passionate and professional team of colleagues, I am constantly impressed by what they do.
The biggest challenge at the moment is navigating such unusual times, from Pandemics to demographic changes to global economic changes – there is no such thing as “normal” at the moment.”
What motivates you in your role?
“In Jersey, we are the largest landlord and developer, and so I am motivated to help our beautiful Island support a vibrant community, where people have somewhere they want to live that they can afford. There is much work to be done here as there is a high cost of living on the Island, but this is what we are working towards. I am particularly motivated to provide opportunities that encourage young people to stay on the Island.
In all respects, I am motivated to help our customers in the best way we can, by delivering the homes and services they value in a sustainable way. Always with an eye on the long term view.
The more I learn about housing, the more I realise there is to know, and that is part of its appeal for me.”
What are the key priorities of Andium Homes right now?
“Our capital programme is now delivering a significant number of new homes for the first time and so a key priority for us is welcoming more people into an Andium home, including marketing our homes in new ways so that people are aware of what we are offering.
Because of our delivery of more homes, social housing on the Island is becoming available to more people than it has before, and this trend will continue over the coming years.”
Can you tell us about a recent success at Andium Homes that you are proud of?
“We recently secured our first Private Placement, which is understood to be the first socially-labelled bond of any crown dependency. Since securing this funding we have been able to enter into contracts to deliver family houses in the country parishes, to complement our delivery of apartments in our capital – St Helier.
I was particularly proud of this project because it enabled us to reflect on our journey over the last 10 years since we were created. We have improved the standard of our homes through significant investment in maintenance and have delivered many new homes for the Island. This is what we set out to do, and 10 years later we have achieved the initial targets we were set and are now entering into the next phase, which will see us deliver many more homes for Islanders and continue to raise standards.
The project involved people from right across the business, and I was very proud to see everyone come together to achieve a great outcome, supporting each other throughout.”
What are the main challenges in the social housing sector in Jersey?
“The key challenge on the Island is affordability. Andium provides homes at below market rates and so a key way we can support Islanders is by building new homes so that more people can access our services. We also work closely with Jersey’s Housing Minister to support his policy development.”
What made you want to join Eurhonet?
“We met with a Viennese journalist, who kindly introduced us to Christian Schantl at Wiener Wohnen (a long-standing Eurhonet member). Christian graciously explained the Vienna housing model to us and told us about Eurhonet. We are very excited to learn more about other jurisdictions and to share some of the interesting things we are doing here in Jersey.
We hope to identify areas where we can learn from one another. We are particularly interested in developing relationships to support one another through our industry-specific challenges and opportunities.
Something that really appealed to us was that colleagues at all levels can benefit from the network, including the Exchange Programme.”
What would you like other Eurhonet members to know about your organisation?
“That we are very keen to learn, to share ideas and to build strong relationships within the network. We believe that learning from each other, and understanding the challenges of our local environments, provides opportunities to improve services for our customers – which is what we are all here for.”
