Karbon Homes: Building strong foundations for life

The graffiti has long gone, not that it matters.

It’s nearly ten years since an exasperated Daniel Blake lumpenly scrawled his frustrations at welfare bureaucracy across the screeded exterior of Newcastle’s Portland House.

But the scene, complete with stunned bystanders, a cheering pink sash-wearing hen party and selfie-stick teens, remains just as enduring.

Ken Loach has that effect.

I, Daniel Blake; Family Life; Kes; Cathy Come Home. Social identity; class conflict; deprivation; poverty.

Unflinching and unequivocal.

And much more than a flicker on a screen.

Cathy Come Home, set in the penurious streets of 1960s Birmingham, jolted Britain awake to its homelessness crisis in literal black and white terms, spurring the creation of charity

Shelter and compelling Westminster to build new housing associations across the country’s shires.

Today, its legacy persists through scores of organisations, not least the Newcastle-headquartered Karbon Group.

Founded in 2017 through a three-way merger of Cestria Community Housing, Derwentside Homes and Isos Housing, its ever-growing portfolio now encompasses nearly 35,000 properties across diverse communities in the North East and Yorkshire.

In an age of housing shortages and lengthening waiting lists, through its Karbon Homes, North Homes and Leazes Homes divisions, the organisation is putting Loach’s televisual tenets of dignity, security and a fairer chance into practice, restitching societal fabric in modern-day technicolour.

And it is doing so through a strategy that provides good quality homes, delivers excellent customer service and helps build strong and sustainable places where communities can thrive.

Paul Fiddaman, Karbon Group chief executive, says: “Cathy Come Home had a big ripple effect on the way people looked at homelessness.

“One of its consequences was the Government calling in the great and the good from across the country and teaching them how to set up housing associations

“If you trace Karbon’s lineage through those associations, you get to a number of small organisations formed in the 1970s through an initiative known as the ‘flowerpot men’ – on account of them growing these associations.

“One of those organisations was Enterprise 5 and, in its very first board meeting, a founder member remarked, ‘we are about people and their housing. In that order.’

“That represents an amazing summary of what we’ve tried to be as an organisation ever since.”

He adds: “Our core mission is to provide strong foundations for life; we are more than just a landlord, we make an important contribution to the communities we serve.

“Some customers need an affordable home, some a way onto the property ladder.

“Others might need more – financial advice, community services, sheltered accommodation or training that can lead to a new job.

“Whatever people need to feel more secure, confident and happy, we work hard to provide it.

“By providing modern homes with good facilities, we create platforms for people to build successful futures,” adds Paul of Karbon, whose Community Investment Fund provides grants to charities and projects that support with cost of living challenges while building communities through health, wellbeing and place shaping initiatives.

And in an era where a scarcity of available social housing grows ever more acute, Karbon’s strategy is having significant effect.

During the course of its last financial year, the organisation delivered 707 homes across the North East and Yorkshire, through a mix of social and affordable rent, shared ownership and rent-to-buy properties.

This was made possible through a £181 million partnership with the Government’s housing and regeneration agency Homes England, in which Karbon has committed to developing 2324 affordable properties across its catchment area by 2028.

It additionally spent nearly £100 million on maintaining the quality, safety and energy efficiency of its stock, with £17.5 million invested in elevating its entire property catalogue to the Government target of energy rating level EPCC by 2030.

More than 550 further new homes are earmarked for delivery next year, with around £135 million planned to be spent on existing homes across the next five years and £13 million ringfenced to boost nearly 1000 lower performing properties over a 36-month period.

Those works will add to its provision of new properties in Byker, which represent the first affordable housing in the Newcastle district for decades, and Karbon’s flagship Seaham Garden Village development, in east Durham.

Set to feature 750 affordable homes – of which more than 200 are now under construction by Bowburn-headquartered delivery partner Esh Group – Seaham Garden Village will include a further 750 homes for outright sale through Taylor Wimpey and Miller Homes.

The affordable properties, through a partnership with Durham County Council and the Mining Remediation Authority, will be connected to a mine water district heating system, which, when paired with additional energy efficiency measures, will significantly enhance the homes’ net-zero credentials.

The schemes will all play out against a £39 billion Government spending review commitment to boost social housing stock through to 2036.

And Paul says Karbon – which worked alongside 47 contractors and suppliers during its 2024/2025 financial year, and matched a record £2.8 million of social value commitments to various projects and charitable organisations – is more than ready to help turn Westminster’s “welcome” cash pledge into reality.

He says: “My first home was a shared ownership apartment in Newcastle, and it gave me a stable platform to pursue my career.

“But it is much more difficult for younger people to get on the housing ladder in that way today.

“We’ve had decades of underinvestment in housing as a piece of critical national

infrastructure.

“Successive Governments have focused on different areas: the Conservatives primarily looked at owner occupation, whereas Labour is much more aligned to the affordable end of the market.

“Years of rent interventions and significant inflation in the building sector have also eroded providers’ financial capacity to deliver new affordable homes.

“In the last 15 to 20 years, the private rented sector has doubled as a proportion of the national housing market to about 21 per cent, with home ownership declining pro rata.

“It has meant the housing offer across large parts of the country, particularly for aspiring homeowners, hasn’t been affordable.”

“Against that backdrop, we are committed to doing everything in our power to do more for people,” adds Paul of Karbon, whose New Start and Green Start programmes play integral roles in helping businesses upskill talent.

The housing provider’s drive will soon be augmented by Graphite Living, the planned subsidiary of the Karbon Group that Paul says will allow it to “further scale ambitions” alongside an investor partner.

Operating as a jointly-owned, for-profit endeavour – earmarked to be officially registered with the Regulator of Social Housing early next year – Paul says the move will enable Karbon to deliver more homes while retaining its not-for-profit charitable status.

He adds: “Graphite will be a registered housing provider delivering affordable rented accommodation.

“It will be overseen by the Regulator of Social Housing and be subject to the same rent controls, standards of governance and consumer regulation as the other subsidiaries within the Karbon Group.

“Securing funding in a slightly different way, it will play an active part in our development ambitions for the next ten years, allowing us to continue meeting our housing targets.”

The move, says Paul, is set to be additionally supplemented by the “tantalising promise” of devolution, specifically North East mayor Kim McGuinness’ multi-million-pound pledges to build more affordable homes as part of a wider manifesto to tackle child poverty.

Viewing the region through such an inherently local lens, he says, will enable decision-making and investment tailored to exact demand, rather than through a top-down, generic framework.

He says: “Having a mayor focused on equality, child poverty and the condition of homes means we not only have a well-developed understanding of local priorities, but a focal point for housing policy too.

“And thanks to the strategic place partnership between the North East Combined Authority and Homes England, we can make much more locally-nuanced decisions.

“For example, in some parts of the region, where housing isn’t to the quality to which people might aspire, regeneration might be a better and more cost-effective solution than retrofitting to boost properties’ energy performance.

“To have a combined authority partner that understands that, and could influence the way funding is spent to deliver such projects, is a real bonus.”

This focus will be further sharpened by the North East Housing Partnership – wherein Karbon Homes operates as a founding member – which Paul says could deliver as many as 10,000 new properties across the region over the next five years.

Uniting housing associations and local authorities across the North East Combined Authority’s Northumberland-to-County Durham footprint, its partners collectively own and manage more than 200,000 properties.

And this breadth and scale, allied to a September social housing funding bidding round, says Paul – who chairs the North East Housing Partnership – provides no little scope for significant property improvements that would deliver better value for money and realise true economies of scale.

The body is already exploring a raft of opportunities for collaborative delivery, the most advanced being around kitchen installations, which Paul says has the potential to deliver dozens of new jobs and millions of pounds in savings.

He says: “The initial intention of the North East Housing Partnership was to influence the way an incoming mayor would think about housing challenges, and present ourselves as a natural delivery partner.

“We’re organised around the key themes of regeneration, development and placemaking; net-zero and sustainability; employability and social inclusion; and health, care and homelessness.

“What we do speaks to a lot of mayor McGuinness’ priorities, and the partnership has subsequently evolved to a point where we are now pursuing a number of delivery opportunities.

“We have about 220,000 homes between partner members, which represents a big volume of required investment, and we’re looking at ways to deliver some of that collaboratively.

“The partnership is a real success story on a number of levels, and a taste of what we could achieve going forward if we work together effectively.

“The opportunity is obvious and the conversation is unfolding well at the moment.

“If we go into the bidding round as a partnership, we could potentially deliver 10,000 homes over the next five years.”

Karbon Group

For more information visit karbonhomes.co.uk