New Chair and Vice-chair appointed to our Board

Hywel Eifion Jones has been appointed as the new Chair of our Board here at Adra, north Wales’ largest social housing provider, following the association’s Annual General Meeting last week.

Eifion Jones replaces Mark Jones, who stepped down at the end of his four-year tenure earlier this month. He will remain a board member

Sasha Davies was also elected as Vice Chair.

This new team at the top comes at an exciting time for us as we will soon launch our new Corporate Plan which builds on our recent successes and growth with a strong focus on improving services to tenants, reducing our carbon footprint, and providing more affordable homes to local people.

Mr Jones, with a background in banking, has previously served as an Anglesey County Councillor, a member of Betsi Cadwaladr Heath Board and is presently a Magistrate sitting at Caernarfon.  He has served on our Board since early 2019.

“I’m very much looking forward to getting started in the position and playing my part at Adra, at a time when we are about to launch a new corporate plan in Spring 2022, as we deliver a first-class service to tenants and residents,’ Mr Jones said.

Adra’s investment to transform services and achieve very high service performance and satisfaction rates has been very impressive. Significant investment in planned and responsive repairs to our homes amount to over £15m a year and an ambitious programme of building new quality affordable homes involves an investment of £40m a year, meeting a pressing need across north Wales. From developing its first new home back in 2016, it is now a developer of scale, producing over 200 new affordable homes annually” he added.

“Last year we invested £6.6 million in improving our homes, with a further £9.4 million to deliver repairs and maintenance.

” Looking to the future, apart from the Covid recovery and helping our tenants in these uncertain times, one of the biggest challenges we face is to reduce our carbon footprint and decarbonise our business and homes to achieve net zero emissions”.

“Although we’re very much up to the challenge and were one of the first housing associations in Wales to commit to the zero-carbon target, we also appreciate the scale and complexity of the challenge, and the financial resources that will be required to achieve it.

“We’ve set out our stall in our recently approved Decarbonisation Strategy and are working very hard with the Welsh Government and other key stakeholders to work our way through it.” he added.

Sasha Davies, who recently joined us as an independent Board member, has a strong background in development, regeneration, community development and major projects and held executive management positions in both public and private sectors. She now runs her own community and business development and stakeholder engagement consultancy based on Anglesey.

Sasha Davies, our Vice-chair said: “Adra plays such a huge part in the lives of so many people in Gwynedd and more recently across north Wales and is at the heart of so many communities.

“I’ve been impressed by the way Adra responded to the recent challenges that came about during the pandemic, adapting overnight to the new way of working and responding to the changing needs of our tenants and hardship many experienced.

Adra is an important employer in the area, a development partner of choice and a key contributor to the North Wales economy working with local businesses to create better homes and places for our communities. I am looking forward to being part of a company where I can help make a positive difference to people’s lives.”

Ffrancon Williams, Chief Executive of Adra, said: “I want to offer my sincere thanks to Mark Jones who has been a strong, motivational and dedicated Chair for the past four years.

“Under his leadership, Adra has gone from strength to strength, and we are now in a great position to achieve even more in the future.