Phoenix Community Housing Association, which manages around 7,700 homes mainly in the London Borough of Lewisham, has been handed a G3 governance grading and a C2 consumer grading
Headquarters of Phoenix Community Housing Association (Image: Google Street View )
A South London housing association has been downgraded by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) after inspectors found hundreds of overdue fire safety remedial actions. Phoenix Community Housing Association, which manages around 7,700 homes mainly in the London Borough of Lewisham, has been handed a G3 governance grading and a C2 consumer grading.
Phoenix was last issued with C1, G2 gradings and a V2 grade for financial viability in August 2024. It was placed on the “gradings under review list” in July 2025. Following the publication of the latest inspection on October 29, 2025, the V2 grading is the only one out of the three that remains unchanged.
RSH said the resident-led housing association did not meet governance requirements, and had failed to ensure systems and controls around payments were “sufficiently robust”, while weaknesses were also found when delivering the outcomes of the Safety and Quality Standard.
Phoenix Chair, Gavin Wallen and CEO, Denise Fowler said they recognised there was a lot of work to do, but remained committed to working with RSH to ensure the housing association continues to thrive “as a resident led Community Gateway”.
When delivering the C2 grading, RSH said: “While Phoenix takes reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of its tenants and has demonstrated it understands the condition of its homes, improvements are needed to ensure remedial actions from fire risk assessments (FRA) are dealt with in a timely manner.”
At the time of inspection, Phoenix had assured inspectors that it had plans to address the 230 overdue medium risk FRA remedial actions by March 2025. However in June 2025, the number of overdue actions had increased to 862. As of September 16, 2025, Phoenix had 427 overdue actions. Phoenix reportedly has a plan to address all overdue actions by May 2026.
When it came to issuing the G3 grading, inspectors said Phoenix had failed to address skills gaps and make material decisions related to board changes in a timely manner.
They added: “A combination of vacant board positions, gaps in resourcing and oversight have resulted in Phoenix not providing adequate assurance of the effectiveness of its governance arrangements.
“While steps have now been taken to recruit new, suitably skilled and experienced board members and a permanent chair, we will need further assurance to demonstrate that governance changes are effective particularly in relation to board oversight, challenge and scrutiny to ensure Phoenix’s affairs are managed appropriately.”
When issuing the V2 grading, inspectors said Phoenix’s financial plans were consistent, and support its financial strategy. They went on to say Phoenix has “an adequately funded business plan”, with access to sufficient liquidity and security.
Following the recent gradings, Mr Wallen and Ms Fowler said: “With a new Chair, strengthened Board, our excellent staff team and our exceptionally high resident satisfaction and engagement, we can address the issues identified in this judgement. Our financial position also remains strong.
“We are committed to working with the regulator to ensure that Phoenix continues to thrive as a resident led Community Gateway, delivering on our vision that ‘Together, we are building a better future for our Phoenix Community’.”
Don’t miss out on the biggest local stories. Sign up to our MySouthLondon newsletter HERE for all the latest daily news and more.