A Year of Progress - “As I mark my first year leading Accent Housing, I want to reflect on our successes and look at what the future holds for the communities we support.”
By Nick Apetroaie, Chief Executive, Accent Housing
My first year at Accent has taught me many things, but perhaps the most important is this: when the foundations are strong, real change becomes possible. At Accent, we have been working hard to ensure our customers have a voice in shaping what we do.
In September we held our third annual Big Conversation, where we knocked on 5,671 doors, spoke to 1,951 customers. We have also launched a new Customer Influence Framework and formed engagement groups by giving more customers a meaningful voice in what we do. The overwhelmingly positive response to our recruitment campaign for these groups shows that customers want to be involved, they want to hold us to account and help us get better. Continuing to work closely with our customers it is the right thing to do, and it is central to our corporate strategy and future.
We had our V1/GI regulatory rating reaffirmed, as well as our A credit rating this year, reinforcing Accent’s financial strength and governance standards at a time when the sector is under unprecedented scrutiny. We’re seeing ongoing positive movement across our Tenant Satisfaction Measure scores showing increases in customer satisfaction. However we’ve been open about the work still needed to further improve.
Despite financial pressures and economic uncertainty, our investment in both existing and new homes has remained strong. Our planned works programme delivered record investment to modernise thousands of homes - 3167 to be precise, alongside positive improvements in repairs satisfaction. Delivering around 70,000 repairs a year is challenging, but we remain committed to making this service the best it can be.
We are delivering new homes at scale with 825 homes under construction, and our development plan is to complete a minimum of 400 new homes per year for the next ten years. Our development programme remains strong despite economic uncertainty. Accent was named as the sector’s top EPCA-rated home builder by Inside Housing and climbed to position #38 in Inside Housing’s ‘Biggest Builders’
Accent has secured £33.8 million in new government funding through its Strategic Partnership with Homes England. This will enable Accent and our partners to deliver 301 additional affordable homes, most of which will be for social and affordable rent.
Customer safety and wellbeing remain a priority, with our dedicated leadership on safeguarding creating a strong framework of protection and support for those most at risk.
In May we welcomed Nigel Wright as our new Chair of the Board.
Throughout the year we hosted community and neighbourhood events all over the country, including health checks, IT sessions and estate walkabouts.
In recognition for all the hard and dedicated work at Accent over the past 12 months, we were shortlisted for 12 awards.
Looking ahead, as Accent celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026, our focus includes:
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Continuing our customer first approach by embedding customer engagement in all aspects of our organisation and driving customer satisfaction and complaints resolutions improvements
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Using advances in technology to help build on our foundations when it comes to service delivery.
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Continue our work to ensure a strong safety compliance is embedded in everything we do.
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Building on our partnership with Homes England as a strategic and reliable delivery partner.
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Submit a bid as part of £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP).
As we come to the end of another busy year, I want to thank all our colleagues, customers and partners for their support and commitment. I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.