Welcome to South Lakes Housing (SLH)

As an independent, not-for-profit housing association, South Lakes Housing is the largest provider of affordable rented housing in South Lakeland, Cumbria. Our mission is to make a positive impact on your lives by providing ‘Quality Homes, a platform for life.’

We live and work in an area of outstanding natural beauty, with homes and communities in and around two national parks and two local authority areas (Westmorland & Furness, and Lancaster City).  We have properties in Kendal, Ulverston, Ambleside, Walney, the Lake District National Park, and Sedbergh in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Since our establishment in 2012, following the transfer of over 3,000 homes from South Lakeland District Council, we have been dedicated to enhancing the quality of affordable homes and the services we provide to you. Today, we proudly serve over 9000 customers and families in our community.

South Lakes Housing

Investing in your homes

We have invested £72M in improving and maintaining homes, including £5M dedicated to environmental improvements.

South Lakes Housing

Expanding affordable housing

We have built or acquired nearly 300 affordable homes to meet your needs.

South Lakes Housing

Keeping rents affordable

We ensure that rents remain at a level that is accessible for everyone.

South Lakes Housing

Recognised excellence

We are proud to share that in November 2024, the regulator acknowledged our effective governance by retaining our G1 grade. Our V2 viability grade reflects our successful management of increased risks while delivering on our ambitious plans.

Business Strategy Visual

Our business strategy

The need for quality affordable homes has never been greater, with many working families unable to afford homes on the open market. A rapidly ageing population, fuel poverty and flood prone areas provide the backdrop to our priorities for action.

Our mission, “Quality Homes, a platform for life,” guides our plans. We aim to continue to improve our customer experience, ensure our homes and neighbourhoods are safe and well maintained, whilst improving energy efficiency, decarbonising old homes, and building affordable new homes over the coming years.

In 2025, with a new Labour government in power, our business strategy continues to focus on three key themes: Growing, Greening, and Transforming.

For more information, please click the button below (opens in a new browser tab).

 Our organisational values and behaviours 

To deliver our business strategy we have developed and adopted the following values and behaviours.

Who we are and What we do

Our 'SLICE' values

Sustainability
Reducing our impact on the environment and conduct our business in a socially responsible and ethical manner.

Learning
Learn from our mistakes and successes. Seek and provide honest feedback. Open to personal change and continuous improvement.

Inclusivity
Committed to creating an inclusive culture where we treat our customers, colleagues and stakeholders with respect, honesty, empathy and fairness.

Challenge
Challenge what we do, seek out and test new approaches and ideas, collaborate with others and share our learning. Listen to our customer’s needs and challenges.

Excellence
What we do, we strive to do well, to deliver a great customer experience/outcome.

 

Customer service - let’s make it happen

All our staff across the organisation have been trained in the Let’s Make it Happen Programme which is all about giving us tools and techniques to play our part in making life easier for our customers, colleagues and ourselves. The tools support us in living our values and behaviours in our everyday interactions. They enable us to communicate effectively, to each other’s needs and build strong and trusted relationships.

Birthwaite

Our behaviours

We have looked at good practice from other organisations and met with colleagues from across SLH to develop our behaviours framework. By living these behaviours every day, our colleagues, managers, and senior managers are living our shared SLICE values and helping to deliver our vision of ‘Quality Homes, a platform for life’.

  • Genuinely care – Cares about delivering high quality services for our customers, colleagues, and stakeholders.
  • Take responsibility – Takes ownership for delivering high-quality outcomes.
  • Have respect – Respects diversity; listens to and has empathy for colleagues and customers.
  • Be adaptable – Responds flexibly to get things done.
  • Work together – Works collaboratively across teams and services to deliver.
  • Be curious – Curious about new approaches and ways of working.
  • Make it happen – Prioritises work, uses initiative and is solutions focused.
  • Always improving – Continually learning and always looking for ways to improve.

We use our behaviours framework every day – from how we recruit people to join us, to our annual performance development reviews, and as a framework for solving problems and making decisions.

Partnership organisations

As not-for-profit Housing Association, we work closely with several partnership organisations including;

Placeshapers

We are a PlaceShaper, a national network of more than 100 community-focused housing associations.

Find out more at Placeshapers

Homes for Cathy

We are members of the ‘Homes for Cathy’ Group which is a national alliance of housing associations from people across the UK helping to raise awareness of the needs of homeless people.

Find out more at Homes for Cathy