Our story
Network Homes has been delivering homes for as many people as possible since 1974 and we’re proud of our heritage.
Though we now operate across London and the South East, Brent was our original borough and is still home to our HQ. We started life in February 1974, as Brent People’s Housing Association (BPHA), acquiring our first home for rent in Willesden.
In 1976 we acquired the Roundwood Estate in Harlesden, also in Brent and nearby in 1978, we built our first sheltered homes for older people.
The 1980s was a time of great change in housing with the election of Margaret Thatcher ushering the Right to Buy legislation in 1980 with home ownership being encouraged.
We developed our first shared ownership home for sale in 1982 with the 1980’s witnessing the birth of Network as a brand, with BPHA becoming Network Housing Association in 1988.
Network grew rapidly through the 1990s taking transfers of council homes and acquiring smaller housing associations.
In 1995 Riversmead Housing Association is formed to manage nearly 4,000 homes for East Herts Council.
1998 was a big year as we provided our first key worker homes for NHS workers at Northwick Park (pictured).
We expanded further in the 2000s moving to a group structure and becoming Network Housing Group.
In 2000, Brent Council transferred its sheltered housing and resident care homes to Network. East Herts Council transfers around 4,000 homes in 2002 following a successful tenant vote.
A group structure was created in 2003 establishing Network Housing Group and the following year in 2004 we moved into student housing.
In 2007 Lambeth Council transfers over 1,400 homes at Stockwell Park (pictured) to new Network subsidiary, Community Trust Housing (now SW9 Community Housing), to facilitate estate regeneration following a successful tenant vote.
The 2010s saw bigger changes at Network and we simplified our group structure in 2011.
Our position as a developer of homes stepped up a gear and in 2013 we were named ‘Development Team of the Year’ after starting more than 1,000 homes in a year for first time. We built our first homes for outright market sale in 2014 we win six major national development awards for the quality of our new homes.
Launch of Network Homes
The year 2016 marked an exciting new era for us when in April we restructured our business, bringing all of our operations under one organisation – Network Homes. We now operate across the whole housing market, providing homes to people from all walks of life.
Network was on the up and we were named as ‘Housing Association of the Year’ at the WhatHouse? Awards and ‘Overall Winner’ at the National Housing Awards. We also got 14 major national awards for the quality of our new homes and for our customer service.
In 2017 we were named RESI Landlord of the Year (Registered Social) and won first prize at the London Homelessness Awards for Project Vista. That same year 20 members of staff cycle from London to Paris, raising £66,000 for St Mungo's.
We invested £1.8million the community centre for Stockwell Park in 2017 and invested a further £1million to upgrade the Stockwell Hall of Fame – a world-famous space for graffiti artists to paint (pictured) and a newly refurbished space for the community to play sports in 2019.
We completed our £34million regeneration of the Ridgeway in Sele Farm, Hertford in 2019.
Network went into the 2020s leading the G15 Group of London’s largest housing associations with our Chief Executive Helen Evans Chairing the group between 2019 and 2021.
With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020 our residents and colleagues faced unprecedented challenges, but we’ve throughout this period we’ve shown resilience. We completed our 10-year transformation of Rectory Park, Northolt August that year with 449 new affordable homes and a new community centre and orchard.
Completed in August 2020, Network has transformed Rectory Park (an increase of 179 homes from the 270 properties of the old estate) along with a new community centre and orchard.
We continue in our mission to provide homes safe, secure and affordable homes for as many people as possible. We have an ambition to build 1,000 affordable homes by March 2023 and more if market conditions allow.
Because we believe that good homes make everything possible!
