Our man for President!
06/07/08
Steve Benson, Managing Director of Testway Housing, was welcomed as the new Chartered Institute of Housing President in June - the first president from the South East region since John Bennett in 1993.
Steve is Managing Director of Testway Housing, part of the Aster Group. Testway, based in Hampshire, owns 6,000 properties and also operates in Berkshire and Dorset. It is well known for its community development work, winning a number of awards including three National Housing Federation iNBusiness awards and a Neighbourhood Award for communications. The Aster Group owns 16,000 properties and provides a wide variety of services to over 40,000 people across central south and south west England.
Steve's personal vision is to create communities where people want to live. He believes that housing is about more than building decent homes - it should be about creating communities with good education and employment opportunities, as well as good services such as health care. In this way, everyone living in those communities can have opportunities to succeed in whatever they want to do in their life.
The theme for Steve's presidential year is Housing's Heroic People. He says, 'We quite rightly spend a lot of time talking about policy, procedures, education and best practice. But in my experience, the greatest impact is made by some fantastic individuals in the housing world who do extraordinary things to improve people's lives. Working with all of our regional committees, I plan to identify, recognise and reward as many of these people as I can during my presidential year. I will be doing this in a variety of ways, including awards at each of the regional conferences.'
Steve's chosen presidential charity is the Crisis Changing Lives Awards, which provides funding to help homeless people into employment. 'I aim to raise £40,000 in a variety of ways - I will be providing more details when I launch my appeal in July.'
Outside of work, his main interest is rugby union. 'I have refereed at senior level and was coaching at club, county and regional level last season. However, my coaching will take a back seat during my presidential year.'
Steve is Chair of Ellingham & Ringwood Rugby Club and still plays for their 2nd XV, in the same team as his son. 'I hope my presidential duties will still leave me enough time to play most weeks during the coming season!'
Steve Benson
e: steve.benson@testway.co.uk