Housing associations need to take a second lockdown into account, lender says

When asked whether their organisation is planning to turn to lenders for additional funding as a result of the pandemic, 86.7% of respondents said no.

Mr Sillars said he was not surprised by the results of the poll. “The funding market has been open for housing associations all the way through the pandemic and liquidity has been quite stable,” he said.

Rhona McLeod, chief executive of Trust Housing Association, a 3,600-home provider of mostly homes for older people, said that rather than planning additional funding, Trust is focused on conducting a treasury review.

She said that the organisation this year has reduced income as a result of increased voids and bad debts, but that that had been offset by cost reductions, particularly in repairs.

“Rent arrears will get worse before they get better, because of the end of the furlough scheme,” she said.

Evictions have also presented a “moral dilemma”, with the organisation forced to choose between evicting someone during a global pandemic and protecting the financial stability of the company and services for other tenants.

The ambition for its business plan is to be “robust and flexible”, she said, adding that Trust is bringing in new software to model different scenarios, including income reduction and cost increases.

Similarly, Sarah Smith, chief financial officer at Optivo, said the team had been undertaking stress-testing and had implemented an early warning system for reporting on its key performance indicators.