Leeds-based Unity Homes wins top national award for community impact
Leeds housing association recognised at 2026 Housing Executive Awards
A Leeds-based housing association has received national recognition for its work supporting communities and encouraging entrepreneurship.
Unity Homes and Enterprise won Best Social Value Project of the Year at the Housing Executive Awards 2026. The BME organisation was also “Highly Commended” in the Housing Association of the Year category.
The awards celebrate innovative projects and the people working across the UK’s social housing sector. The social value category recognises initiatives intended to improve the lives and communities of residents beyond the provision of homes.
Chief Executive Cedric Boston received Unity’s trophy during an evening ceremony at the home of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.
Unity provides 153 affordable business units for more than 140 diverse businesses, which employ over 1,250 people in Leeds. It also offers advice and support to help people enter self-employment, access education and training, or secure work for the first time or following a long period of economic inactivity.
The organisation actively promotes entrepreneurship to people who have not traditionally been encouraged by the sector to pursue it as a career.
Mr Boston said: “We are thrilled to receive the Housing Executive Best Social Value Project Award, one of the sector’s most prestigious national accolades.
“It is a credit to the efforts of a fantastic team at Unity which is absolutely dedicated to improving life chances for people living in hard-to-reach communities in Leeds.
“We offer the full range of business advice and wraparound support services that start with outreach in the community, encouraging local people to see business as a career opportunity.
“Support can begin in our low-cost business hub, where people can develop and launch their ideas, and continue as they expand into one or more units before growing beyond our centres with stability and ongoing professional assistance.
“Over the past 12 months, we have achieved an outstanding business tenant satisfaction rating of 9.25, underlining our reputation as a supportive, responsive, relationship‑driven provider of business space. Our tenant retention rate remained at 99%.
“It is fantastic that these achievements have been recognised by the awards judges.”
Unity was established in 1987 to create a strong, BME-led community housing association addressing the needs of black and minority ethnic communities in Leeds.
It now manages almost 1,400 homes for tenants from all communities and ethnic backgrounds, with its portfolio including developments in Huddersfield and Cleckheaton.