The Housing Platform

Hosted by Platform Housing Group

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Jun 2025

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About the show

As one of the UK's biggest providers of affordable and social housing, Platform Housing Group will be sharing stories from our organisation through colleagues and customers to contribute to current discussions around the UK housing sector.

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27 recent

June 27, 202526 min

Biggest Builders 2025 - Are we ready to deliver what the spending review is asking of us?

At the Housing 2025 conference in Manchester, join members of Platform Housing Group's development team and external partners Lovell Partnerships to discuss the future of affordable housing delivery off the back of the Biggest Builders survey and the government spending review.What issues have we triumphed over in the last 12 months and what is on the horizon?What part will the combined authorities play in affordable housing across the Midlands?What might delay the spending of the £39bn afforded to the sector for the next ten years?

April 15, 202516 min

Taking on more risk in the land sector

Welcome to the Housing Platform, from Platform Housing Group. We’re a large, registered provider of social housing, and we manage over 50,000 homes across the Midlands. In this episode, you join us in the middle of a very important field...one where we’ll soon start building over 200 affordable homes. The site is called Browns Lane and it’s in Tamworth in Staffordshire.It’s a site that shows that Platform is keen on changing how we approach securing land for affordable housing, in a way that we hope can accelerate what we deliver and exceed our previous standards of the places we create. Hosted by Richard Hurst, communications business partner, we asked members of the land and new business team to join us on a sunny April morning to explain to you just what this new approach means... 

March 24, 202519 min

Time to redefine AI?

In March, we attended the Housing Technology conference in Nottingham, where professionals from across the tech and housing sectors came together for seminars, exhibitions and vital networking to really drill into their problems and solutions. As you can imagine, a hefty section of the conference talked about artificial intelligence, and the possibilities it has in changing our sector for the better. The term is being banded around a lot at the moment...sometimes a bit too hastily to attract attention with then little of what we know as AI at the heart of it. On day 3 of the conference, we took 15 minutes to sit down with Platform’s CIO Jon Cocker and one of our non-exec board members, Heena Prajapat to talk about it and ask, is it time to redefine AI already??? If you’ve got your own questions, send them to podcasts@platfromhg.com and we can put them to Jon and Heena. This Housing Platform podcast is worth subscribing to for our thoughts on many different sector topics as well as sharing practices and experiences to help improve what we do for our customers. 

February 9, 202523 min

The Recipe for Successful Apprenticeships

As part of February's National Apprentice Week, hear from apprentices at Platform Housing Group about how they are finding the programme, why they chose it and whether they'd recommend it to others.Hear from apprentices in Grounds Maintenance, Procurement, Gas Engineering, Finance and Customer Experience.There's also advice and thoughts from colleagues who look after our apprentices and leaders about what the future of apprenticeships looks like.Thanks to Linda Gittings and Ellie Steel as well as Ground Maintenance apprentice Tyler Bergin-Ruff for their contributions.You can find out more at Apprenticeships | Platform Housing Group

November 8, 202412 min

Housing Matters - Can we hit housing targets and deliver high quality at the same time?

The latest targets for delivery of affordable housing are high and present a challenge for the sector. Combined with the need to deliver new standards and Platform's desire to provide high quality homes, how can it all be done together.Hear from Platform's Group Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude on the stakeholders that need to stand up and deliver in the face of one of housing's biggest challenges to date.To find out more about Platform Housing, go to our website www.platformhg.com.

October 10, 202413 min

Housing Matters - Social Rent

Following discussions on Section 106 and Shared Ownership, the next topic we want to tackle is Social Rent.Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude discusses wow social rent contributes to the affordable landscape – compared to other tenures.We'll also ask how important is it to Platform across our geography and look at why people are calling for more to built in particular? Finally, we also cover why is it dangerous to sacrifice other tenures like Shared Ownership for building more social rent.

October 3, 202436 min

Housing Matters - The Labour Party Conference 2024

Here we bring you highlights of Platform's fringe session at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool in September. The aim was to give more exposure to shared ownership as a tenure and reinforce how vital it would be to helping to solve the housing crisis. Chaired by Rhys Moore Executive Director of Impact at the National Housing Federation, Platform’s Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude was joined by Ann Santry, Chair of the Shared Ownership Council, Andrew Taylor, Group Planning Director at developer Vistry Partnerships and Cllr Sarah Williams Deputy Leader at Harringay and member for Housing and Planning. This podcast brings you highlights of the speakers addressing the floor and answering questions the audience put across.

September 9, 202415 min

Housing Matters - Section 106

Welcome back to Housing MattersAs part of our podcast called The Housing Platform, these special episodes by Group Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude will address some of the issues in the sector from Platform’s perspective.In this episode, we'll discuss section 106 and changing attitudes towards it as a way of delivering high quality housing solutions. We'll look at the current sentiments towards it and what the future holds.Remember you can find us on linkedin or at platformhg.com if you want to engage further. There are a whole host of other topics we’ll be covering including our previous episode which looked at Shared Ownership, and our upcoming discussion about social rent.Make sure you are subscribed to our podcast...and keep an eye out for other Housing Matters editions of ‘the Housing Platform’. 

August 9, 202412 min

Housing Matters - Shared Ownership

Welcome to Housing MattersAs part of our podcast called The Housing Platform, these special episodes by Group Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude will address some of the issues in the sector from Platform’s perspective.In this episode, we'll discuss the tenure of shared ownership, why it's under threat and why the sector needs it to continue to solve the housing crisis.Remember you can find us on linkedin or at platformhg.com if you want to engage further. There are a whole host of other topics we’ll be covering around section 106 agreements and the role of social rent in solving the housing crisis. Make sure you are subscribed to our podcast...and keep an eye out for other Housing Matters editions of ‘the Housing Platform’. 

June 26, 202429 min

Biggest Builders Survey 2024

Join Platform Housing as we discuss the results of Inside Housing's Biggest Builder's survey, where the group placed very well following some great work from the teams involved with Growth and Development.Analysing all the results are Group Chief Executive Elizabeth Froude, Executive Director of Growth and Development Gerraint Oakley, Director of Land, Partnerships and New Business Kate Ellison; New Homes Delivery Director Paula Heatley and Director of Programme Helen Newbury.Rich Hurst the communications business partner is your host as the podcast is brought to you from the centre of Manchester during the Housing 2024 conference.