I went to the Methodist Central Hall yesterday to hear about this from John Flint, CEO of UK  National Wealth Fund.

This morning I have found out about what “NWA” is doing to improve British housing.

But I have to get and report the information from a newspaper , not from the CEO – who I can’t question and I can’t report due to restrictions on bloggers!

Unfortunately the meeting had been put under rules that do not allow me to tell you what Mr Flint said, which is a shame because I have both applause (for making money available) and concern (at the speed at which it is being distributed).

My experience of the properties being put up all over Britain is that the quality of the building is generally poor and that people who buy new builds too often find themselves in trouble when they want to move. Many of the properties in the town I was born in , in Dorset, cannot be sold till major repairs are done to newly built properties.

The use of small scale renewable energy and low carbon heating in many new houses is impractical if the properties are falling to pieces, though I’m pleased that the new money is available through insurer Rothesay who put money behind the buildings.

I have loads of questions I wanted to given to John Flint to make sure that the properties being put up, are put up in such a way that people who move in have low carbon hinting. But if there is no opportunity to ask questions of the National Wealth Fund’s CEO, then I can’t comment on what John Flint said.

I don’t know whether the other people in Methodist Central Hall are concerned about how money is being distributed through pensions and through the annuities that buy pensions out (like Rothesay). That’s because as soon as he had finished his hour long presentation , John Flint left – so I can’t even comment the questions I had for Mr Flint.

The Labour party , when it got into power, wanted to put power behind the Infrastructure Bank and so gave Mr Flint a new brand and a new mandate.

But if we are to be funding this UK National Wealth Fund, and go to hear its CEO speak, then we should be given more than what we got, which I can’t tell you about because of the rules that I was under not to repeat what was said and link it to the person saying it.

For us to feel that our money – our pension in many cases – is doing good things in the UK, then we need to understand the difference between people’s bad experience from houses our money builds and what the CEOs and other senior figures consider is happening.

Mary McDougall’s article is getting news to us from people who are prepared to say what’s going on

The loans will be made to housing associations through the Housing Finance Corporation, the UK’s leading affordable housing aggregator, which said that its partnership with National Wealth Fund was key to providing low cost financing to the beleaguered social housing sector.

“We’re trying to get more bond investors like Rothesay to provide more financing to the sector . . . this is an example that hopefully we can scale because the task at hand to retrofit is so vast,”

said Priya Nair, chief executive of THFC, who added that the deal marked the first time an insurer had made loans exclusively to fund retrofitting.

 

Much of Mary’s article is about the problems we have with our infrastructure, including Grenfell, you can read it here if you haven’t a subscription  or contact me if the free link runs out (henry@agewage.com)

The UK Investment Summit 2025 could have been better if more conversational with an audience full of people who were in a position to invest. Many – like me – who want to encourage better investment in the UK may have left- like me, feeling left out.

Let’s be more open. We need to make UK investment something we are all involved in. I left shortly after lunch and we may have had more interaction in the afternoon but I’d lost patience with a lack of debate.

As a Methodist I felt at home asking questions, the trouble was there was no chance to find out more.