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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.