Soho HA’s surplus for the financial year ended 31 March 2004 was £237,216 which compares favourably to last year’s deficit of £144,821 excluding the exceptional surplus from the sale of fixed assets. This surplus has been added to our General Reserve, creating a new balance of £4,979,088 at the year end. These reserves put Soho HA in a healthy financial position, helping to protect us against external risk and ensuring our continued financial viability.
 
Total rental income from our homes totalled £2,861,606 for the year, an increase of 5.6% over the previous year. This increase is due to rents rises according to the housing corporations rent restructuring rules and 7 new homes coming into management during the year.
 
We have spent £1,219,415 on our existing homes - £628,395 on routine maintenance, £201,928 on cyclical maintenance and £389,092 on major repairs, mainly kitchen and boiler replacement. Our business plan shows that our focus is on reinvesting in our existing properties.
 
Our commercial properties provided an income of £768,857 in the year to 31 March 2004, a significant contribution to our total revenue. This sum represents an increase of 8.5% over last year, mainly due to one new property coming on stream as well as some rent reviews. The commercial income is used to assist the continuing development and management of our homes.
 
Balance Sheet
 
Soho HA invested in building seven new homes last year. We spent £395,246 on refurbishing homes for the future, £271,092 of which was Social Housing Grant. The outstanding amount was met from last year's proceeds of the sale of properties. Seven units were handed over during the year.
 
During the year we sold four land-banked properties and one social housing unit to raise £5.4m. We used these proceeds to repay £3.5m loans to reduce the outstanding loans to £19.6m (from £23.4m last year). This loan reduction strategy will ease the interest burden pressure on the operating surplus to achieve the interest cover loan covenants required by the private lenders. We did not raise or drawdown any private loan during the year. The balance of the proceeds were used for the funding of the development works.
 
These strategies have helped us to overcome the financial difficulties and have earned us a green light financial viability rating from the Housing Corporation again. We now have a modest development programme of 30 units over the next three years which will be funded mostly from Social Housing Grants, the balance of the proceeds available and the unutilised loan facility of £1.5m.
 
A full set of our audited accounts is available on request, free of charge.
 
 
 

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