Rodney Dykes began his career as an environmental health officer before moving to housing then housing associations.
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It is a tough job but someone has to do it. Making difficult decisions that change tenants’ and workers’ lives is what Rodney Dykes is best known for.
Rodney, who trained and qualified as an EHO in his hometown of Bury in the Sixties, is now helping ‘tiny’ Abbeyfields housing association in south Manchester consider its future.
‘It’s a pleasure to work with groups like this,’ says Rodney, who writes a regular column for Inside Housing magazine. ‘They respect professionalism and they’re so close to the people they work for. They do a great job.’
But small-scale housing associations are a dying breed. Larger associations are sweeping up their smaller counterparts, while working to keep local connections with tenants and residents. ‘It’s so difficult for small housing associations like Abbeyfields in an increasingly sophisticated world,’ says Rodney. ‘They have to satisfy the decent homes standard, fire safety regulations and the European working time directive. Abbeyfields is still deciding what to do.’
'We've been forgetting how bad housing impacts on health and anti-social behaviour'
Previously, in a special investigation into alleged non-performance of senior housing staff, Rodney helped one Kent council make the tough decision to retire a senior officer. Other recent commissions include governance reviews and training, a prospective transfer of engagements and advice on capital housing projects.
He was deputy chair of the Liverpool Housing Action Trust until its successful conclusion in 2005. He has also conducted statutory inquiries for the Housing Corporation and the National Assembly for Wales.
Rodney began life as a public health inspector in 1965 and in six years in local authorities in the North-West he also qualified as a housing manager and gathered the foundation skills for his career.
In 1971 he became deputy chief executive of Merseyside Improved Houses, now Riverside Housing Association. ‘To my knowledge I was the first person to leave environmental health to work full-time in housing associations. I’m quite proud of that because it set a trend.’
In his five years at MIH and another five at North British Housing Association, now Places for People, Rodney began recruiting EHOs. ‘Over that 10-year period there were 10 people who came to work with me from an environmental health background. Of that 10 at least seven went on to become chief executives of housing associations.
‘They’re able managers, they’re leaders and they’re forthright in achieving excellence in their organisations, but they are proud of their roots and what that means in terms of people’s living and working environment.
‘People I’ve been working with recently who hold high office but have got that background include Ian Munro, chief executive of New Charter, Howard Farrand, chief executive of Whitefriars Housing Group and Brenda Kirkby, director of operations at Fabrick Housing in Middlesborough.’
Rodney hopes this trend, and recent changes in the CIEH, will help the environmental health profession regain the influence it once had in the housing sector. ‘With Stephen Battersby as president of the CIEH we’re at last seeing the profession having a strong voice in housing. We started like that but food and other priorities had pushed housing off centre stage.
‘Stephen is pushing environmental health’s voice in housing policy, in the way housing services are developed. We’ve been forgetting about how bad housing impacts on health and antisocial behaviour. Environmental health is important in all these areas.’
It was back in 1980 that Rodney founded his consultancy, Rodney Dykes Housing Services. Selling it to the Chartered Institute of Housing enabled him to form Bee Housing. Now, as its managing director, he provides housing consultancy and regeneration services to housing associations, local authorities, contractors, architects, builders, developers and charities.
He received the International Prize for 2003 from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association. He also won the John D Lange International Award 2006 from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, US, in recognition of his work with the CIH in contributing to the three organisations’ biennial tri-country conferences, and particularly organising the 2000 event, held jointly in Manchester and Liverpool.
A fellow of both the CIH and the CIEH, he is a trustee of Henshaws Society for Blind People, The Grundy Homes and the Matthew Haygarth Trust. He is also a non-executive director of the Southport and Ormskirk Hospital Trust.
Rodney says: ‘The overarching thing is my environmental health background and training. It has served me well, allowing me to specialise in housing but I’ve always tried to remember why environmental health matters.’
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