Charles Alexander

Chair of the Board

The wider challenges our world has faced in recent years have resulted in everyday living costs remaining high while, at the same time, our country is still grappling with the impact of a sustained housing crisis. As a result, our role in helping customers have safe, warm, and decent homes, in maximising the benefits a secure tenancy offers or in simply helping see one maintained in difficult times, has never been more crucial.

Our efforts to support customers even more strongly over the last year has taken place when there’s been much further change, here at home and abroad. This has created opportunity as well as risk for housing organisations like VIVID. The government has placed housing firmly at the heart of its agenda. With this has come the opportunity and responsibility for the housing sector to work collaboratively with government to deliver more and better homes.

In 2024-25 we experienced fluctuating conditions, shaped by various events and decisions made here and elsewhere in the world. From new world leaders, taxation reforms and the ongoing impact of global warming, we’ve confronted the financial risks and pressures that have been generated as a result.

From managing risks to maximising opportunities, we’ve effectively navigated our way through the last year while generating positive impact for customers and communities and maintaining our new homes development programme. Our efforts this year are once again due to our strong governance and leadership, our inclusive culture supporting our committed people, and effective financial discipline. The coming year will present further risks but also further opportunity, and at VIVID we believe we are well placed to manage these as part of our continuing support to customers.

Mark Perry

Chief Executive

We're dedicated to ensuring that we provide high quality homes and consistent, reliable services that deliver the outcomes that truly matter to our customers. This is at the core of why we as a leading housing association exist - we believe a safe, secure home is the foundation to a bright future and key to achieving life’s ambitions.

Our focus over the last 12 months has been on our repairs service, customer communication and complaint handling – all with a relentless drive for continuous improvement. This attention has delivered the step change we’ve wanted to see for our customers.

We've made significant progress, reducing the average time to complete a non-emergency repair to 18 days. We’ve seen a 20% increase in customer logins to their online account showing the value it’s felt is gained from interacting with us in this way. Additionally, we’ve invested £100.2m to maintain and enhance the quality of customers’ homes, whilst also developing a programme of investment to inject new life into certain neighbourhoods.

Our commitment to customer experience and building trust is unwavering. We know there’s still work to be done so we listen carefully to feedback, ensuring customers can influence our actions and approach. Customer voices are vital – your families, homes, and communities shape our business. With a deeper understanding of our customers and the expertise and innovation of our team here at VIVID, we can tailor our services effectively to meet a diverse range of needs and capabilities.

The country is still in the midst of a housing crisis with many people unable to afford to buy or rent a home on the open market. This is why we remain deeply committed to delivering more new affordable homes year on year. Amid government efforts to deliver 1.5m new homes, we’re playing our part. We’ve delivered over 1,500 new homes during 2024-25, one of the highest amongst housing associations in England, providing more decent roofs over the heads of people who really need them.

This report has been crafted with the support and insights of our customers, who have shared their views on the content and contributed articles on topics that matter to them, in their own words.

It also details our performance based on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures set out by the Regulator of Social Housing in England. These measures centre around five key themes, hold us accountable and demonstrate how we are performing in delivering quality homes and services that matter most to you. While we've made progress, we acknowledge there are areas where we must do better, and we’re committed to making those improvements.

At VIVID we remain true and committed to our vision of “More homes, bright futures”. On behalf of everyone in the organisation we look forward to the year ahead working in collaboration with our customers, our partners and many others to deliver even more positive impact across the central South.