At Thriving Investments, we believe our investments hold more than monetary value – they can also improve lives. Creating a tangible link between investor expectations and the need for affordable housing, we bridge the gap between economic growth and social value through the investments, developments and communities we actively fund.

A key part of our vision is to provide homes across all tenures with a strong focus on providing good quality homes across the UK for those on (or below) median incomes. We are all aware that more housing is needed across the board, but we wanted to look at where we could get the most impact by creating housing specifically for the keyworker demographic as we believe that is an under-served demographic – the ‘squeezed middle’ as it is often called. Traditionally that has been to look at rent versus income but there are more factors to consider – whether alternatives are available for example affordability of for-sale homes or social housing and how markets have been changing over time.

Together with Dataloft by PriceHubble, we narrowed the criteria to 8 components and then ranked the local authorities as to where the affordability issues were most acute. The research does not go into the viability of development and opportunities for housing in those areas: we hope that many new sites will come forward and that this research can highlight priority areas. We intend to revisit this research regularly to see what impact new affordable housing delivery has on the ranking of local authorities.

Our overall goal is to tackle the social issues of the day while providing strong financial returns alongside positive social impact.