OUR PEOPLE

Working together

With decades of experience, the leadership team at Symmetry Housing has been building homes to the highest standards and providing them to people who need them the most across a range of sectors and geographies.

Our Board

Chris Phillips

Chris has over five decades of real estate, fund management and corporate finance experience. Until recently, Chris served as chairman of Places for People, one of the UK’s largest property management, development, regeneration and leisure companies.

For more than a decade, he oversaw gross assets of £4.9 billion and more than 11,600 employees.

Over the course of his career Chris has been at the helm of several successful residential property, retirement care, infrastructure, agriculture and environmental technology companies and both listed and private companies in London, Europe and the US.

He is currently chairman of London & Newcastle, Market Asset Management and Shetland Space Centre, Nova Innovation. Chris is also chairman of SOHO, a £0.5 billion REIT on the main list of the London Stock Exchange. Chris has also become actively involved as a seed investor in several small to medium sized enterprises.

Nigel Hopkins

Nigel Hopkins works as a non-executive director in the housing, ageing and skills charity sectors.

He is currently audit committee chair of Places for People and MHS Homes.

Nigel is also the chair of Social Finance’s End of Life Care fund and Instructus, a vocational skills charity that works with training providers, colleges and employers.

In addition, he is the international programme director for Standards Wise International, which focuses on improving services in senior living and advises on improving the performance of housing associations.

Symmetry Housing is proud to work with Avison Young, who act as our independent investment committee.

Our Founder

James Jones, Founder

Having grown up in a residential care home owned and operated by his mum, James is fiercely passionate about the role of housing in society. The friendships and familial relationships he struck up with the home’s residents showed him many of life’s asymmetries and lit a passion to correct them.

James launched his own housing business Carisbrook in 2008 to help him to achieve his lifelong goal of helping people remain safe and well in their own homes. In 2018, after ten years in the industry, James established a housing and social care investment partnership, Carislease

James has worked in many local authorities across the country to bring more than 300 properties into the housing market to date. Each of these properties has become a home for life for hundreds of vulnerable individuals and families.

WHO WE ARE

Excellent quality homes

Symmetry Housing has been founded with a clear objective; to provide excellent quality homes for society’s most vulnerable people, at the lowest possible cost point, for residents, local authorities and other key stakeholders.

Delivering high quality as standard, we work with tenants to help turn houses into homes. We care about what we do and want to form lasting, trusted relationships with the residents and communities we work in.

We provide homes for those in the most challenging of circumstances, including homelessness, domestic abuse, individuals with learning and physical disabilities, people with complex and challenging behaviours and those with long-term mental health issues.

To quote our founder, James Jones:

“A good home starts with a good house – Symmetry Housing is set to deliver high quality homes that people can be proud of.”