Show House digital editor, Rory Wilkinson, recently spoke to Bjorn Howard, Group CEO of Aster Group, to find out more about the Group, the state of play of the social housing sector and what this year has in store.
2025 has been a challenging year for the housing industry in general. How has it been for Aster, and what issues are currently impacting the sector?
2025 continued to be a challenging economic environment, but we’ve made significant progress in investing in our existing homes while maintaining a healthy development pipeline.
We delivered close to 1,000 new homes at the end of March 2025 across a range of tenures, bringing the total number of homes built since 2020 to over 5,000. Alongside this, we increased our investment in upgrading existing homes, spending £115million on stock improvements, up from £106.2million the previous year, as part of our continued focus on quality and long-term sustainability.
That long-term approach is central to how we’re responding to the challenges facing the sector – staying financially resilient while being clear about our purpose and priorities. By investing in data and technology, and continuing to work closely with suppliers and stakeholders, we’re building the capacity to improve existing homes at pace, meet decarbonisation targets and continue delivering the new affordable homes our communities need.
The sector is also adapting to shifting regulatory expectations and funding opportunities. For instance, Awaab’s Law and the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund amongst other legislative changes all mean we need to be even more responsive and proactive in how we work, and rightly so. Balancing meeting demand for new homes and the need to invest in ageing stock can create operational and funding pressures, especially when you’re committed to keep services running well for existing customers.
We’re not immune to the challenges facing the sector. But by making smarter use of data insights and investing in the right technology, we can face these head-on, helping to minimise disruption for our customers and improving our ability to plan for the long term.
The government recently set out its revised planning policy. Do you think these changes will help boost housing delivery?
Planning reforms provide greater clarity and a stronger foundation, with improved capacity and alignment of local and national targets being a welcome step. What really matters now is making this work in practice.
On the ground, planning delays aren’t just down to bureaucracy, often it’s local residents with genuine concerns about local impact and that’s why we’re so passionate about housing delivery models that bring local communities into the conversation – working with them, not around them. Community land trusts (CLTs), for example, are owned and led by the communities they serve, helping to address objections to development and create places that actually reflect what local people want and need.
We’re one of the most active CLT partners in the UK, having completed 13 schemes and on track to deliver more than 300 CLT homes. This is the highest delivered by any housing association in the UK. If we’re serious about building communities, this is an important piece of the puzzle and there is scope for the government to go further in this area. A minimum requirement for a number of CLT homes in each of the government’s New Towns, for example, could help ensure these developments genuinely work for the people who will be living in and near them.
What have been the highlights of the past year for Aster?
Our community-led housing programme has continued to grow, with new schemes underway in places like Portland, Arundel and Dartington. These projects help us to respond to urgent local needs. They respond to priorities such as protecting green spaces and developing mixed-use schemes – ultimately empowering the people who live in these communities.
Alongside delivering new homes, we’re improving our customer service offering and increasing social impact through the likes of the Enham Trust. Since it became part of the Group, Enham has been fully integrated into our operations and, last year, we invested £4.5million to enhance its infrastructure and homes. The Trust also supported around 5,500 disabled people across the south of England, empowering them to live, work and enjoy life.
To make this possible, we continue to invest in the strength of our organisation. We’ve expanded our talent offer by offering our colleagues access to meaningful learning programmes and facilitating lateral career progression. This foundation enables our teams to deliver high-quality, dependable services that meet the evolving needs of our growing and diverse customer base.
We’ve also continued to use data to guide our decisions, ensuring we invest in the right homes at the right times. Over the past seven years, we’ve invested more than £500million on repairs and improvements, and have pledged to invest a further £1billion in upgrading our existing homes over the next seven years.
While Awaab’s Law is a positive step forward for the sector, our core promise remains the same: to provide safety and security through a range of housing and services. This new law complements the work we’ve been already doing to drive up standards for our customers. We’ve established a dedicated Damp, Mould and Condensation (DMC) team and are investing in upskilling and training our in-house team. To strengthen this further we’ve enhanced our approach to tackling DMC through a new partnership with a specialist provider, helping us respond faster and more effectively to customer needs.
What changes would you like to see in the industry over the next year?
The Long-Term Housing Strategy is a real opportunity to set out a roadmap that can guide delivery over the years ahead. A clear and stable plan would provide certainty and help housing associations and their partners plan with confidence.
This should include clarity on funding for retrofit, clear timelines for EPC regulation, proper support for homes that are harder to improve and a planning system that can actually support delivery at scale while rewarding schemes that demonstrate connection to the local community.
What does 2026 have in store for Aster?
“We’re doubling down on our commitment to customers, underpinned by a £1billion investment in improving the quality and sustainability of our homes. That sits alongside continued investment in technology and data-driven tools to help us better anticipate issues and respond faster to reduce disruptions. It won’t transform everything overnight, but we’re seeing how it can drive up standards and help us be as responsive as possible and anticipate problems before they escalate.
We’re also expecting to deliver close to 1,000 new homes again this year while expanding our CLT programme further. By the end of the year, we’ll have started work on 113 new CLT homes and completed 57, cementing our position as the UKs most active housing association in community-led development.
I’m determined that Aster continues to be a voice for cooperation across the housing sector, using programmes like our upgrades project with WPS, the property services arm of Wates Group, to demonstrate how long-term partnerships can make a big difference. Housing associations have a vital role to play in connecting national ambition with local action and turning policy into homes that make a real difference to people’s lives.
