Affinity Housing

Affinity (Reading) Limited, the Special Purchase Vehicle, has a Board of Directors who have overall responsibility for the successful management and operations of the PFI contract with the Council. The four Directors who currently sit on the SPV Board are:

Paul joined Radian in June 2009 as interim Director of Windsor Housing & Longwood Park. A professionally qualified senior manager with more than 20 years’ housing experience, he worked his way up from housing management roles at Notting Hill Housing, Newlon Housing Trust and Acton Housing Association before his appointment as Director of Housing Services at Dominion Housing Group in 2003 where he had responsibility for the Group’s general needs housing, community development and resident involvement across London and the South East.

Paul left Dominion in April 2008 to become a freelance housing consultant. Before taking up his present position he undertook consultancy assignments for Notting Hill Housing and Catalyst Housing Group.  He has significant experience of managing general needs housing, supported housing, leasehold, key worker accommodation and temporary accommodation at strategic level, first hand knowledge of the Audit Commission inspection regime, project management skills, extensive experience of managing change, performance management systems and working directly with RSL Boards and residents’ groups

Jonathan currently works with Southern Housing Group as Finance Services Manager and has been with them since  1991. Combined with his huge experience of public sector housing, Jonathan has a wealth of treasury management and financial expertise. Jonathan represents Southern on both the SPV Board and also the Joint Venture Partnership with Windsor, which was set up to deliver Housing and Community Development on behalf of Affinity (Reading) limited

Steve is the Director for PFI, leading a team of PFI professionals undertaking bidding, investment management and managing existing projects and project companies, predominantly Education, Housing and Community Care. Projects include Merton Schools, Leeds Primaries, Clacton Schools, Kirklees Special Schools, Enfield and Newham Schools, Reading Housing, Slough Schools, Kirklees Housing, Woking Housing and Luton BSF.

Steve joined Wates in 2005 following a varied career in the UK and internationally, working successfully with numerous client organisations, both as client project manager and as part of the contractor team, including a role as a lead consultant and project manager for Boots the chemist pilot projects and roll outs. His experience has been gained in the UK, Australia and America, with projects ranging from leisure, quality heritage refurbishment, industrial, stadia, housing, MoD and pharmaceutical.

A large part of this experience was with Wates, as he originally started with the Company in 1986, breaking service twice; once to work abroad (Australia/America 1997-99) and once to join ROK Group as Commercial Director for London (2003-05), predominately dealing with large scale mixed-use developments for Registered Social Housing Landlords within the South East of England.

Gavin joined Nationwide in April 1999 after 5 years heading up Alliance and Leicester’s social housing team.  He has a background in corporate banking both from clearing banks in Edinburgh and City institutions in London.  Gavin works within Project Finance Department leading teams involved in lending to PFI clients. He has been responsible for leading Housing PFI projects for the last 7 years where Nationwide have been involved in developing solutions for a range of issues within the sector.

Nationwide is the funder and a consortium partner in the Manchester PFI project at Plymouth Grove (Grove Village Ltd) and likewise for the Reading  project at North Whitley (Affinity (Reading) Ltd), the Ashford  project at Stanhope (Chrysalis (Ashford) Ltd) and the Cheshire Extra Care project at various locations within the county (Avantage Ltd). Gavin is a board director for all these SPVs. In addition Gavin has led bids for Islington (Wave 1) and Leeds (Wave 1).

Gavin is currently leading Housing projects in Oldham and Brunswick (Manchester) and BSF projects in Derbyshire, Luton and Rochdale.