Tamar manages nearly 500 homes in the Plymouth area. This is made up of homes for rent and shared ownership.Tamar also works with Plymouth City Council on its Houselet scheme. This is a very successful project to reduce the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families and forms an integral part of Tamar’s strategy on preventing homelessness.

During 2008/9, Tamar let 35 properties, 8 of which were newly built properties. 5.7% of our lettings were made to people from black and ethnic minority communities. 23% were made to people who were statutory homeless prior to the offer.37% were let to people who had some form of disability.

Overall performance as measured by key performance indicators has continued to improve. For example, Tamar re-let properties on average after only 15 days during 2008/9, whereas the average for Housing Associations is 24.1 days.

During the last year there has also been a reduction in the amount of rent arrears owed by residents, from 2.1% to 1.7% of the rent charged (excluding arrears due to Housing Benefit). This is due to the excellent work on arrears carried out by Housing Management staff.