Who we are

At LiveWest, we believe in a home for everyone.

We own and manage over 40,000 homes across the South West, from Cornwall to Gloucestershire. We have ambitious plans to invest £1bn in the South West economy and to build 5,000 new affordable homes in the region over the next five years. Safety in our homes remains our number one priority.

This is part of LiveWest taking huge steps towards alleviating the region’s housing shortage, in an area of high housing need as well as high house prices which makes accessing housing particularly challenging for many families.

We offer homes for affordable rent and shared ownership sale. We also build homes for private sale, to generate profits which we then use to provide and build more affordable homes.

We take the time to listen to, understand and learn from our customers. We focus on thriving as a business and employer so we can deliver more homes and even better services.

As well as meeting housing demand, it’s easy to forget the vital role that affordable homes contribute to economic development and prosperity, enabling local companies to recruit the workforce they need from their communities. LiveWest’s growth strategy will not only contribute to economic growth in the South West but sustain up to 7,000 jobs in the building industry and its supply chain.

We were formed in March 2018 through the merger of Knightstone Housing and DCH, and since then we have built on the best of both organisations. We have recently invested in new build offices in Exeter and Tolvaddon to complement our Weston-super-Mare office, where we are also making major investment. Combined with touchdown points for our many mobile workers, our aim is to offer a contemporary working environment with an emphasis on building a shared culture.

We are a member of Homes for the South West, a group of the largest developing housing associations in the South West, making the case for investment in our region.

Find out more about us here.

Our board

Paul Crawford
Chief Executive

Paul has worked in property management and residential development for over 30 years. Prior to being appointed as CEO of LiveWest he held the position of Group Chief Executive at DCH for nine years and Managing Director at Sovereign HA for five years. He is also a member of Homes for the South West (formerly HAILO), an influencing and lobby group focusing on investment to address the various housing challenges in the South West.

Melvyn Garrett
Deputy CEO

Prior to LiveWest, Melvyn was the DCH Group Director of Finance/Deputy Chief Executive. Melvyn has extensive finance and operational experience, having joined DCH from Motorola Mobility in 2013, where he was Europe, Middle East, and Africa Finance and Operations Director. He also previously held finance, strategy and chief executive positions in the transport, electronics and distribution sectors; with eight years spent in the USA.

Jacqueline Starr
Chair

Jacqueline (Jac) joined our LiveWest Customer Services Committee in January 2019 and she is now a Chair of the LiveWest Board. Jac is the current Chief Executive Officer for the Rail Delivery Group (RDG). Previous roles have included Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Customer at RDG, Director of Experience at Barclays and Head of Experience at O2.

John Newbury
Chair Senior Independent Director (SID)

John is a qualified housing professional with wide and senior experience as a local government director, and as adviser to government, to the commercial sector and to social landlords. He has been Director of Housing and Regeneration for a public services PLC and a non-executive director. John joined the DCH board in October 2016 and was appointed to the LiveWest Board in 2018. John is a Non-Executive Director of Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Tom Vaughan

Tom is an experienced board director, who has lived in North Somerset for over 30 years. Most of his career was spent in leadership roles at Unilever and BP, and he was a Marketing and Strategy Director for six years at housing association Affinity Sutton. He has a number of non-executive posts, including Chair of Clevedon Business Improvement District, Director at Clevedon Pier and Heritage CIC and Vice Chair at PA Housing. Tom was appointed to the Knightstone board in May 2016 and the LiveWest Board in 2018.

Chris Balch

Chris is a chartered town planner and surveyor with more than 30 years’ experience advising central and local government on development and regeneration programmes and projects. He has managed large-scale professional service firms and is an experienced board director spanning the public, private and voluntary sectors. He is Non-Executive and Senior Independent Director of Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust and Vice Chair of South West Lakes Trust. He is an Emeritus Professor at Plymouth University where he led its planning programme for seven years. Chris joined LiveWest as independent adviser to the Development Committee in 2022 and the Board in 2023.

Joanna Crane

Joanna has over 25 years' experience in banking and financial services, most recently at the European Investment Bank in Luxemburg. She has worked across a range of disciplines within UK, EMEA and International operations.
Joanna has led strategic transformation projects and organisational design initiatives, and has a particular focus on career development and equal opportunities in both public and private sector businesses.
Joanna has held non-executive positions in the NHS from 2009 to 2023, including chairing Quality and Risk committees.

Philip Stephens

Phil trained as a quantity surveyor and has worked in construction and house building for over 40 years. He also has over 25 years of experience at director level. Previous positions include 10 years as Executive Director for Development and Commercial at Sovereign and director roles at Willmott Dixon and Maxim Homes and board member for The Housing Forum.

Rahul Jaitly

Rahul has over 25 years' experience working across a number of industry sectors providing broad global IT leadership, digital innovation management and board advisory services for private equity and venture capital-backed companies. He is currently a Non-Executive Director at PA Housing. He previously served as the Group Chief Information Officer at L&Q Group and held senior roles at Kuoni Group, Universal Music Group, GlobalNetFinancial.com and the Financial Times as well as in board roles in the NHS and for a charity.

Alison Cambage

Alison has over 35 years of experience working in international corporate sector organisations and, more recently, within the housing association sector. She held senior treasury roles in Jaguar, Bass PLC and Akzo Nobel, was a Relationship Director at Barclays and was Treasury and Legal Director at both Midland Heart and Bromford Housing Group. She has also worked as an independent consultant in several UK based housing associations, particularly through periods of restructure.

Alison led the housing association sector's Treasury Management group for many years and was a Non-Executive Director at Your Housing group for six years until 2024.

David Hardy

David is a Chartered Accountant with over 35 years' experience in corporate finance, mergers, acquisitions and fundraising across social, economic and environmental infrastructure and has an in-depth knowledge of treasury, funding and regulatory matters.

A former Corporate Finance Partner at KPMG and Director and Fund Manager at John Laing plc, he has extensive non-executive experience in social housing and is currently Vice Chair and Board member at Peabody Trust.

David was appointed Independent Adviser to the Audit and Risk Committee in July 2024 and joined the LiveWest Board in November 2024.