Last updated 26 September 2022
Clarion Housing Group
Clarion is a registered social landlord formed through the merger in November 2016 of Affinity Sutton and Circle to create an RSL with responsibility for 125,000 homes in 150 local authorities in England.
Financials
After a fall in the previous year, in the 12 months to March 2022 turnover at Clarion rose to £1,059 million (2021: £944 million) and the operating surplus rebounded to £303 million (2021: £258 million). The surplus after taxation also rose, hitting £186 million (2021: £122 million).
To view the financials for Clarion, visit the group”s website here.
Operations
The group is focused on England, particularly in the south and has homes under management and offices from Plymouth the Newcastle-upon Tyne, there is a significant exposure to London, where 48,000 of the existing homes managed by Clarion are located and the group is working in 28 of the capital’s boroughs.
In 2016/2017, Clarion was awarded almost £2 million-worth of external funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government’s £32 million Estate Regeneration Fund for regeneration schemes including three estates in the London Borough of Merton, where Clarion is involved in a £1 billion programme to deliver 2,800 new homes. Clarion also works on other major schemes in the capital, such as the £123 million Southernwood Development in Dagenham to create 725 homes (Project ID: 17179355).
Outside of London, Clarion is working on a Garden City Style Development with its development arm Latimer Homes set to produce 9,000 homes at Tendering in Essex (Project ID: 22332513).
In 2019, Clarion was appointed to the London & South of England section of the £425 million Contractor DPS framework, which will run for a decade from 2020 (Project ID: 19217365).
In the summer of 2019, Clarion appointed ENGIE, United Living and Wates to deliver a £1.1 billion regeneration programme over the next 20 years (Project ID: 18311327).
In August 2021, the Greater London Authority announced awarded Clarion £240 million to build 2,000 new affordable homes in London between 2021 and 2026, mostly for social rent. In September 2021, Homes England chose Clarion as a strategic partner for its Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26 and is providing £249.7 million to build 4,770 homes.
In the 2022 survey of the top 50 developing housing associations by Inside Housing magazine, which covers the period from April 2021 to March 2022, Clarion was ranked in second after completing 2,276 units (2021: 2,126 units). Out of this total, 203 units were for social rent, 552 for affordable rent and 146 for London affordable rent. The group also completed on the second largest total of low-cost ownership homes with 1,045 units and was second in terms of homes for London affordable rent with 146 homes. With homes for market sale, Clarion was sixth after completing 330 homes for open sale, which represented 14% of overall completions.
Going forward, in terms of starts, Clarion was ranked fifth after beginning work on 1,474 new homes.
Glenigan Data
In 2021, Clarion made seven detailed planning applications to build a total of 1,624 units (2020: 875 units).
In the 12 months to Q2 2022, Clarion also awarded 13 contracts valued at £250,000 of more (2021: 12 contracts). The total value of these awards was £146.0 million (2021: £217.0 million). These awards ranked Clarion in 46th position in Glenigan’s table of the industry’s biggest spending clients (2021: 22nd).
Conclusion: Rebounding strongly
The group’s own figures show that completions hit a record level in the most recent year, as Clarion bounced back from the impact of the pandemic and the after effects of the merger between Affinity Sutton and Circle that created the Clarion Group. With recent major grants from the Greater London Authority and Homes England, this looks set to continue.
In 2021, Clarion had the second biggest planning pipeline according to Glenigan’s data – up form seventh in the previous year. Clarion appears to be focused on larger schemes with the average development entered into the planning system in 2021 featuring 162 units (2020: 125 units). This appears to be as the group looks to build more apartments. There had been a shift towards family-friendly housing but in 2021 and 45% of the homes proposed were apartments and the balance some form of house (2020: 78% housing/22% apartments).
The group appears to be progressing smaller projects though and going into 2022, spending on construction appears to have sagged and Clarion has slid down Glenigan’s rankings of the construction industry’s Top 50 clients. As a result, the average contract awarded in the 12 months to Q2 2021 was valued by Glenigan at £10.3 million (2021: £16.7 million).
The group continues to develop major projects with external partners, including the £259 million Maltkiln Village plan set to feature 4,000 homes in York, which is being developed with Caddick and expected to start in 2023 (Project ID: 17179616).
Clarion has pushed through a remedial programme focusing on compartmentation, mainly through fire door renewal and fire stopping, and completed a programme to install automatic fire detection and emergency lighting and upgrade fire doors to converted street property.
In the most recent financial year, the group has spent £638 million on construction. This includes £136 million (2021: £95 million) on its existing homes and £502 million (2021: also £502 million) in the construction of new social housing properties.
The net margin has reached 18% (2021: 13%) and the group remains in a strong financial position as one of the UKL’s biggest developing social landlords. The focus remains on developing homes of affordable tenures, which provided 90% of completions in 2021, and Clarion’s commitment to large strategic developments will make the group one of the largest social housing clients in the entire UK construction industry.
Winning Work With Clarion
Clarion is CIPS Corporate Accredited and tenders large contracts through the Official Journal of the European Union. In October 2020, Clarion became the first UK housing association to be awarded a Gold level Procurement Excellence Programme award by the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply.
Tender opportunities at Clarion are made available through the group’s Delta esourcing portal here. The procurement team can be contacted via – procurement@clarionhg.com
Key Clarion procurement contacts include:
Director of property management – Ian Morrison, tel: 020-7378-5608