Financial highlights

We own and manage over 11,500 homes and provide services for over 27,000 customers. The unfortunate economic conditions that the UK faces means that there will always be a demand for our services and growth through the development of more properties to meet housing need.

We’ve adapted well to the changes affecting the UK social housing sector and the wider economy. Since 2011 we’ve been developing new homes without grant subsidy from central government.

2022/2023 was the first year of our new Corporate Strategy. It was also a year dominated by global and economic shocks and uncertainties. The huge spike in energy prices has been sorely felt, both directly in the costs of heating our homes, but also through the significantly high levels of inflation we’ve seen. From buying groceries, to buying the materials to repair homes or build new ones, the cost-of-living crisis continues to be tough for many people and businesses. Alongside some political decisions, this has also weakened the UK economy, with the high levels of inflation being met by rapidly increasing interest rates. For our homeowner customers, this has made it more difficult for people to afford their mortgages or even buy a home. For CHP, we’ve been protected through our cautious approach to the loans we take being mostly fixed rates, but when we do need to raise more money, that will cost us more than has been seen for a long time. 

The Management Team have worked hard during the last financial year to enhance our financial rigour. With rent increases being held down below inflation, it’s been essential for us to try to limit cost increases, so we can maximise what we can deliver to our customers through repairs and improvements to homes.

Despite the challenging environment, we continued to perform well. Our turnover for the year was £77.6m which was £3.8m more than the previous year. Our operating surplus however decreased from last year to £20.0m. This pressure on operating surpluses is being seen across our sector, not just CHP. Our debt levels remained at stable levels, with drawn debt being £475m out of an agreed debt capacity of £573m.

Rating and regulation

Regulator of Social Housing

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We’re pleased to retain our G1 for governance and V2 for financial viability from the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). This grading was reaffirmed by the RSH in December 2023 via its annual Stability Check.

In maintaining the highest possible G1 grading the RSH recognises that we’re well governed and in a strong position to continue delivering on our corporate objectives.

Our V2 grading recognises that we’re a strong growing business with sound financial plans in place. It takes into account that we have an ambitious development programme to deliver more homes to help meet housing need in the region and reflects our commitment to becoming carbon Net Zero, which includes our investment to improve the energy efficiency of our homes.

S&P Global

We’ve been awarded an A- credit rating again this year in our annual review by S&P Global.

This rating expects our financial performance to remain strong and is based on several factors. These include our development programme, our strong liquidity position, and our timely response to the challenges presented by the volatile economic environment we’re operating in. We achieved 400 new homes in 2022/2023 working with our partners. As part of our Corporate Strategy for 2022-2025, we’re committed to providing 1,500 new affordable homes.