Our governance
Find out about Homes England’s board and committees.
Homes England Board
Homes England is governed by a board that decides what its priorities are. Its members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
Board members
The board members are:
Peter Freeman - Chair
After qualifying as a lawyer, Peter formed the Argent Group of property companies with his brother in 1981. Argent is particularly known for major mixed-use projects like Brindleyplace in Birmingham, and King’s Cross and Brent Cross Town in London. Peter has also been a non-executive director on several other property companies and a trustee of a number of charities connected with education, combating intolerance, and public performance art.
Lord Austin of Dudley
Lord Austin has spent a large part of his career working to meet housing needs by tackling homelessness, improving the provision of housing and addressing problems of affordability.
Lord Austin spent a significant time of his career serving his local area of Dudley where he served on Dudley Council before becoming the MP for Dudley North in 2005. During this time, Lord Austin served as the Minister for Housing and Planning and Minister for the West Midlands. In 2020, he was appointed to the House of Lords as Lord Austin of Dudley.
Lord Austin also serves as a member of the Corporation of Dudley College.
Stephen Bell
Stephen has substantial experience in banking and financial services. He has been involved in property, consumer and asset finance across numerous jurisdictions, and has held many senior business-leadership roles with a focus on strategy, transformation, risk management and restructuring.
He has held the role of chief executive and group chief risk officer for a number of institutions over the last decade, including high street banks and in the specialist finance sector. He has served on several boards, has qualified as a certified director and is a fellow of the Institute of Directors.
Stephen now serves as the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer for the Bank of London.
Abi Brown OBE
Abi Brown is a deputy chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA), sitting on the LGA Board and also chairing the LGA Improvement and Innovation Policy Board, and Improvement and Development Agency Board (IDeA).
She was leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council between 2019 and 2023, deputy leader between 2015 and 2019, and remains a councillor for the city’s Meir Park ward, which she has represented since 2010.
Abi has held a number of other senior posts including Chair and Non-Executive Director of Fortior Homes, the private housing company owned by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Vice Chair of the LGA City Regions Policy Board, Non-Executive Director of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), and a member of the Midlands Engine Executive Board.
She was awarded an OBE in 2024 for services to local government.
David Cutter
David Cutter has extensive senior level experience in financial services and real estate. He was previously Group Chief Executive at Skipton Building Society for 12 years, overseeing governance, performance and a balance sheet of more than £30bn, after holding several senior positions within the organisation over a 30-year period. He has chaired bodies including the Building Societies Association, Callcredit plc, Home Loan Management Ltd and Skipton Guernsey Ltd, and was a Non-Executive Director at Connells Ltd, the UK’s largest estate agency with 1,250 branches and a turnover of £1bn.
A chartered accountant and former chief internal auditor, David is also a Non-Executive Director at Moorlands Learning Trust. He played international hockey for Wales between 1983 and 1991.
Peter Denton - Chief Executive
Peter joined Homes England in August 2021 from Hyde Group, where he started as Group Finance Director in 2017 before taking on the role of Chief Executive in 2019. He has a strong track record of working in strategic leadership and board roles at large-scale global real estate, banking and not-for-profit organisations.
Emma Fraser and Melanie Montanari – Shareholder Member (job share)
Emma Fraser and Melanie Montanari are DLUHC’s appointed representatives on the Homes England Board. Their day job is Director for Housing Markets and Strategy, a role which includes the sponsorship of Homes England.
Emma has extensive experience of housing policy from various roles in the department and has also worked in the Home Office, HM Treasury and BEIS.
Melanie has worked for the majority of her career in HM Treasury in a variety of roles, including tax and welfare policy, and has also led on homelessness policy in DLUHC.
Mark Henderson
Mark is Chief Executive of Home Group, with 55,000 homes under management across Scotland and England and one of the largest providers of supported housing, working with 26,000 vulnerable people in nearly 500 services. Home Group is also one of the largest developers of housing in the UK with a turnover of some £430 million per annum. It was voted the UK’s best landlord and best housing association in 2014 and 2016.
Mark is currently a director and trustee of Whiteley Village Trust. He previously ran his own business before joining Home Group. Before that Mark had worked with the RDA as Operations Director and a variety of regeneration and economic development jobs across the country in local government, most recently as Chief Executive of one of the largest county councils in the country. He was also a former board member for the National Housing Federation and former Chair of Homes for the North.
Ros Kerslake CBE
Ros Kerslake CBE has more than 20 years’ board level experience in the property and regeneration sectors, serving as chief executive, non-executive director and chair for a number of public and private sector organisations.
Previously she was Chief Executive Officer of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, overseeing circa £400m per annum of project investment, alongside a major organisation transformation programme of the UK-wide body. Her earlier roles include Chief Executive of The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, leading urban regeneration across the UK, Chief Executive for Regen Co, Sandwell, and Director of Property at Network Rail.
Ros is a trustee for the regeneration charity Reform and the University College of Estate Management. She chairs two charities, the Leeds Castle Foundation and the Architectural Heritage Fund. She is also on the board of Sanctuary Group. She was awarded a CBE in 2020 for services to British heritage and an OBE in 2016 for services to heritage. She is a qualified solicitor.
Sir Oliver Letwin
Sir Oliver Letwin has held multiple senior advisory and academic roles during an extensive career in Parliament, banking and academia. He is currently Vice President of the Great Britain China Centre, a Fellow of the Legatum Institute and Senior Adviser to the Faraday Institution, Teneo and Marsh McLennan.
Sir Oliver was Managing Director of NM Rothschild until 2003, having previously served as a director, and a Member of Parliament for West Dorset between 1997 and 2019, serving in senior ministerial posts in the UK Government cabinet and shadow cabinet.
He was Minister for Government Policy and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between 2010 and 2016 and between 2000 and 2010 held roles including; Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Shadow Home Secretary, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shadow Environment Secretary and Chairman of the Conservative Policy Review.
Oliver is a visiting professor at the KCL Policy Institute and an Advisory Council Member to the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge University. Previously he taught Philosophy at Cambridge University.
Sadie Morgan
Sadie is a founding director of leading architectural practice dRMM. Over her 25-year career she has advocated exemplary design and architecture. She is a commissioner and Design Group Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission and is the London Mayor’s Design Advocate.
Lesley-Ann Nash, MBA, FCMA
Lesley-Ann spent 2 decades in investment banking, building and leading structured interbank businesses. She was a managing director of Morgan Stanley but left to offer her financial skills to government. She spent 7 years in the Cabinet Office leading a range of commercial programmes which positively impacted both public and private sectors as well as citizens nationally.
On leaving government, Lesley-Ann has embarked on a non-executive director career. She has been appointed to the boards of St James’s Place plc (FTSE 100) and Workspace Group plc (FTSE 250). She also sits on the board of the business campaigning group, London First.
Lesley-Ann is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and holds an MBA from CASS business school.
Mark Rennison - Senior Independent Director (SID)
Mark is the former Finance Director for Nationwide Building Society. He also chaired the subsidiary company at Nationwide that managed the Oakfield project to build a new housing community in Swindon. Prior to joining Nationwide, he worked for PwC for 25 years, including spending time as an audit partner in their banking practice in London.
Mark is also a non-executive director at TSB Banking Group plc and Royal London.
Pat Ritchie CBE
Pat is an experienced senior leader in economic development, housing and property.
She was Chief Executive of Newcastle City Council for over 8 years, where she notably secured the multi-million-pound investment deal to bring Legal & General to Newcastle’s flagship ‘Helix’ development, and led on negotiations to secure a devolution deal for the North of Tyne Mayoral Combined Authority where she was the first head of paid service. Pat led the city’s response to the pandemic and oversaw the Newcastle Covid Recovery Plan including an ambitious £50-million plan to transform the city centre.
Pat was appointed to Chair of the Government Property Agency in January 2020. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Leadership Centre and a member of Newcastle University Council.
She is a former Chief Executive of the Homes and Communities Agency (Homes England) and former Deputy Chief Executive of the One North East Regional Development Agency.
Pat was awarded her CBE in January 2021 for services to local government and public service reform.
Duncan Sutherland
Duncan is a practitioner with over 35 years’ experience in property, housing, investment, regeneration and development, with a particular emphasis on public-private delivery partnerships involving government, local government, local communities and private investment. He was involved in setting up and operating a £1-billion private-rented-sector (PRS) fund investing in the UK and the UK’s first successful PRS-housing real estate investment trust (REIT).
Duncan has worked closely with the government, promoting innovative and long-term investment approaches to achieving sustainable regeneration. He served as a non-executive director of the British Waterways Board and Scottish Canals and has recently completed a 6-year term on the board of HS2 Ltd, the new high-speed railway to be built between London and the north. He also serves on the Capital Investment Advisory Board at the Department for Business and Trade.
Peter Vernon
Peter Vernon has an extensive senior career in property, regeneration and management consultancy. He is a Senior Advisor at Places for London and Chair of Grosvenor Hart Homes.
Peter was Group Executive Director of Grosvenor until 2021, having previously served as Chief Executive of Grosvenor Property UK between 2008 to 2017. Prior to Grosvenor he was a Partner with PwC Consulting. He has held Non-Executive Director roles for organisations including The Berkeley Group plc, BusinessLDN, and the West End Partnership. He also served as a Trustee of Peabody.
Peter was a member of the Policy Committee of the British Property Federation, the Government’s Montague Review of the Private Rented Sector, a commissioner of the independent City Growth Commission and a member of the Government Estates Regeneration Panel.
Audit and Risk Committee
The committee works with the board on risk control, governance, financial control and statutory reporting. The committee is authorised by the board and the Regulation Committee to investigate any activity within these areas.
Investment Committee
The Investment Committee oversees Homes England investment, land programmes and projects, and certain corporate issues.
Nominations and Remuneration Committee
The Nominations and Remuneration Committee meets 4 times a year. It is responsible for advising on overall pay and rewards, the remuneration, contractual and pension arrangements of staff at director level and above, and setting and agreeing the annual performance objectives, remuneration terms and other terms and conditions of employment of the chief executive and other chief officers, subject to DLUHC and HM Treasury spending team approval.
Change Committee
The Change Committee supports the board by providing oversight of corporate change and culture initiatives, and by making decisions in respect of change programmes and projects.