Happy 50th Birthday Arches

Happy 50th Birthday to Arches

2025 will see Arches Housing turn 50 and over the course of the next year we will be celebrating this milestone with numerous events and community days.

Since our creation back in 1975, we have prided ourselves on our connections with our communities and our customers alike. As part of our celebrations to mark our birthday, we will be interviewing a wide range of customers, staff members, Board members and partners to share their memories of working with and for Arches over the years.

You can read a new interview each week at the bottom of this page, as well as following our social media platforms where we will highlight our brand new interview for that week. We’re looking forward to sharing our stories and celebrating our 50^th anniversary together.

Burngreave Road before

Burngreave Road from the side

Burngreave Road now

An Arches at 50 interview:

“It was all a happy accident”

When asked how Kay first got involved with Arches, her reply was simple – “it was a happy accident”.

Following her decision to take early retirement, Kay soon started to feel something was missing and she wasn’t quite ready to hang it all up quite so soon. Having spent many years previously working in accountancy and governance roles, she started to look for volunteering roles to help keep busy. After asking a few friends and colleagues if they knew of any opportunities, it was a former NHS colleague and chair of South Yorkshire Housing  Barbara Welsh, who mentioned Arches.

Kay explains “It was after speaking to Barbara that she mentioned Arches Housing were looking for Board Members. With my governance and accountancy background, I thought I’d go along and meet the Chair and see what I thought. It was a great opportunity and before I knew it, I was joining the Board. From the start it was obvious that Arches was a great organisation with the potential to become great.”

After the joining the Board, Kay hit the ground running and was soon seeing positive results from the work herself, the Board and staff members were putting in.

She continues “Initially when I joined the Board our customer satisfaction levels were low and this wasn’t surprising as Arches had focused much of their attention on building much-needed new developments and had taken their focus off existing customers and the upkeep of their homes. By refocusing attentions back to bringing our homes up to standard and developing the Arches Homes Standard we started to invest in our existing homes – bringing great improvements in not just the stock but also through customer satisfaction – they had belief in us again and the work we were doing.”

It wasn’t long before circumstances lead to Kay stepping into the Chair of the Board role, and from there, Kay and the senior leadership team continued to ensure customers and staff were the primary focus of their attentions.

Kay adds “I had a brilliant team around me. There is something about Arches which is special and it brings out the best in everyone. It might be a small organisation by comparison to others, but it is certainly mighty. The organisation has real energy about it. The staff team are really valued and empowered to get the job done.”

This was demonstrated perfectly when Arches embarked on their Investors in People (IIP) journey. It wasn’t long before they were awarded Gold status – no mean feat in anyone’s book.

She continues “IIP is a notoriously hard accreditation to achieve, let alone coming away with Gold so early in your journey – we were blown away but it was great validation for the team – I knew all along they had changed the organisation to have a fantastic culture and their energy to get the job done was infectious. Credit goes to Paul and John who led the team on a daily basis, but to think about the journey the organisation had been on in a short space of time – it was amazing.”

Kay officially retired from Arches in September 2024, having handed the reins of the Board over to new Chair, Alan Long. She still has a vested interest in everything Arches does and Kay remains passionate about social housing and creating great communities to both live and work in.

When asked what the next 50 years for Arches looks like, she very simply answers again with “it’s all about the people, good people create good things – exactly what Arches is all about”.

Dates for your diary:

Read more Arches at 50 interviews

Arches Timeline:

Piccies from our Arches @50 launch event: