| Wednesday 19th April 2006 |
141/2006 |
Wigan and Leigh Housing (W&LH) - the organisation that manages the borough’s 23,500 council homes on behalf of Wigan Council - has a new chief executive.
Ashley Crumbley, currently Wigan Council’s deputy director of community protection, will take over from retiring chief executive Peter Gee at the end of June.
For most of his 30-year local government career Ashley has been involved in housing. He joined Wigan Council in 1995 and is the architect of the borough's housing strategy, which has seen the number of unfit and poorly insulated homes fall dramatically over the last 10 years.
He played a major role in the council’s top 3 star rating from government inspectors for its private sector housing services, and helped the Metro win Beacon Council status on two separate occasions.
Ashley Crumbley, new chief executive of Wigan and Leigh Housing
Peter Gee, retiring chief executive of Wigan and Leigh Housing
Ashley, who grew up on a Croydon council estate, said: "I am absolutely delighted to be able to serve the borough in this role. In its first four years Wigan and Leigh Housing has transformed the quality of the council's housing, and Peter will be a hard act to follow.
“The organisation has been independently assessed by government inspectors as providing a good service. I am really looking forward to working with Wigan and Leigh Housing’s boards, staff and tenants to build on its strengths and to provide even better housing services".
Peter Gee is retiring after 42 years service in local government housing, most recently at the head of an organisation that won £137m to transform the borough’s council homes. Wigan’s ‘ALMO’ (arms-length management organisation) was set up under his watch and is still regarded as one of the best-performing in the country.
He first worked in Wigan during the 1970s and oversaw the large slum clearance programmes in Scholes and Wallgate, followed by a large programme of new council house building in Scholes and Worsley Mesnes.
After a spell with Bolton Council, he returned to Wigan in 1987 as deputy director of housing, taking over as director in 1994. He was responsible for introducing neighbourhood services across the borough in the mid 1990s.
Peter was appointed as first chief executive of the council’s arms length management organisation, Wigan and Leigh Housing, in 2001 and pioneered the establishment of the ALMO.
John Roe, joint chair of Wigan and Leigh Housing, said: “We are losing a highly experienced chief executive. Peter has overseen a fantastic level of investment for our tenants and his experience and dedication will be hugely missed.
“Over the past few years council housing in our borough has been transformed and a good deal of the credit for that must go to Peter and his team. However in Ashley Crumbley we have an equally talented successor who knows the borough well and has a huge amount of experience of housing.
“The future is looking bright for our tenants under such a seamless transition.”