Housing Ireland magazine
A powerhouse of delivery Ciarán Galway visits Laytown, County Meath to discuss priorities, consolidation, and professionalisation with Circle Voluntary Housing Association (VHA) Chief Executive and Housing Alliance chair, John Hannigan. Established as a general need family housing association in 2003, having trebled in size in the past five years, Circle VHA now operates in 21 local authorities and manages more than 2,500 homes. The approved housing body (AHB) also partners with disability, mental health, and homeless organisations on the provision of suitable housing and facilities management. Primarily focused on two- and three-bedroom houses or apartments, in the next two years, Circle VHA, in collaboration with its developers, will seek to deliver more onebedroom apartments. Indeed, since the launch of Housing for All, the Government’s housing plan to 2030, the Circle VHA chief has identified a significant increase in pressure to deliver more homes. Having delivered an average of 100 homes per annum over the past three years, the AHB’s pipeline for 2022 will increase to between 200 and 250 homes. In 2023 and 2024 this figure will rise again to 500 and 1,000, respectively.
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“In total, our current pipeline for delivery is 1,500 homes in the next 24 months,” Hannigan says, adding: “Government would like us to prioritise this more and understandably so.” At the same time, with 2,500 existing tenants, Circle VHA has prioritised a move towards a more tenant-first approach, ensuring that tenants are at the forefront of what it does. “This includes, for instance, initiating a Tenant Advisory Group which will assist in bringing tenants onto the Circle board as part of our organisational governance. “As such, we have already established four key groups with tenants to determine the content of our policies and how they are issued,” he notes.
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