The UKCN Board of Directors are delighted to announce the appointment of Anna Kear, as our new Executive Director. Anna has worked in housing since 1988 from leaving University. She has worked for a number of Local Authorities, Housing Associations and a private sector house builder. She has covered a range of jobs mostly in development project management, undertaking both regeneration and new build projects, urban and rural, as well having experience in housing management, finance, sales, planning and community development.
She was most recently a development director for Aster Group, operating in the South West of England. Anna has a passion for community-led housing, and has been a Board member of Wiltshire Community Land Trust, Bath Self-help Housing, and community arts groups. She said ‘I am thrilled to have been appointed as the Executive Director for the UK Cohousing Network. I am really looking forward to working with the Board, members and other community organisations to grow the opportunities for Cohousing and community-led housing. I fully support the UKCN’s new manifesto commitments of ensuring affordability, having a variety of tenures, and working with other community housing organisations.’
Anna lives in Bath in a Victorian terrace with garden space shared with neighbours for food growing and keeping chickens. As well as being a keen gardener, Anna loves to cook for friends, family and neighbours.
Stephen Hill, current chair of UKCN said, “We are sure that UKCN members will enjoy working with Anna. There is a lot of important work to be done this year to secure the Network’s future, and we feel very fortunate to have found Anna to succeed Jo Gooding and build on her excellent work. Cakes and ‘Bake Off’ were mentioned in her application, so we expect that the forthcoming Cohousing Cookbook that Board Member Jackie Carpenter is working on should have at least one guest recipe from Anna.”
The UKCN Directors would also like to thank all those who applied for the post. Phil McGeevor, Board Director for Human Relations said, “We were rather overwhelmed by the interest and the level of commitment to cohousing and community housing generally from everyone who applied. We sincerely hope to be able to build on their interest and maintain the connections we have made where there are opportunities for practical collaborations in the future. Thank you to everyone.”
Anna started work on February 15th.