The housing sector faces questions that can at times seem too big to answer. How can we build enough homes to meet demand? How can we free up enough land to build them on? How do we ensure equitable access to housing?
In this episode, Geeta Nanda, CEO at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing, shares her thoughts on the answers to these challenging questions. MTVH is a large housing association with its portfolio spreading across London, the South East, East Midlands and East of England. With a variety of stock including shared ownership, key worker housing and homes for migrants through the Migration Foundation.
Geeta has spent her 30-year housing career in a wide range of roles, from several years at a local authority to moving through various housing association roles before reaching her CEO position with MTVH. We discover what changes in the sector Geeta has noticed in the last 30 years. She speaks on how the sector has become more complicated leading to wide-reaching changes.
Geeta speaks about the challenges the sector has faced, and why it feels like there’s been a housing crisis for the whole of her career. We also ask Geeta about her key achievements, and Geeta shares her thoughts on the G15 and we learn about her chair position.
We speak about house building and Geeta gives her insights on how and where we can build. We also get insights into the joint venture with Legal and General Homes and speak about the power of collaboration. We touch on Geeta’s thoughts on MMC and the challenges with scaling MMC to be viable in a stop-start housing industry.
And finally, we go into Geeta’s thoughts on leadership and how she believes we can encourage the next generation of talent to join the sector.
In this episode, we cover:
● What changes has Geeta seen across the sector in the last 30 years?
● Why it seems like we’re always in a housing crisis
● How the Migration Foundation is supporting refugees and asylum seekers
● The joint venture with Legal and General Homes
● Insights into G15
● How do we free up enough space to build enough homes?
● The challenges with scaling MMC
● How do we attract the next generation of talent into the sector?
● The future of MTVH