Name: Graham Colls
Job: Chief executive of Magna Housing Group
Salary: £94,000
Graham Colls has got his work cut out - turning round a social housing business with 8,000 properties and debts of £4 million.
Colls, 47, is the chief executive of the Dorchester-based Magna Housing Group which offers affordable homes across Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Hampshire - a region hit by relatively low incomes and rocketing property prices.
The group, made up of Magna Housing Association and Magna West, had just suffered heavy financial losses from a failed maintenance contract when Colls took over three years ago.
Since then, this high-flying trouble-shooter from South Shields has placed the Magna Group on a firm financial footing.
Much of that is testimony to Colls' hard work and experience. His experience in social housing stretches back 20 years. Before moving to the Magna Group, he spent 14 years with the Two Castles Housing Association, which has 33,000 houses in Tyneside, Carlisle and Cumbria. He was managing director when he left.
His move to the south-west was based on brief visits. "We had been here a couple of times on holiday and knew the area was warmer, greener, cleaner and prettier," says Colls, who is married with two teenage children.
Other than that, he says the south-west and Cumbria are alike in many ways. "The areas are quite similar, with the combination of low incomes and very high property values. We have a mixture of families, elderly and teenagers. There is a tremendous demand for housing that we offer because people can't compete with those on higher incomes."
Planning is also a sensitive issue: 90% of Dorset is classified an area of outstanding beauty. Affordable homes are needed on Exmoor, a national park.
Colls says he wants to get the south-west a "fair share of the cake" under the government's sustainable communities plan which he claims is unfairly biased towards the south-east, and Colls wants the new regional housing boards to recognised the high level of need.
Colls is happy in the south-west. "The only thing it hasn't got is family friends and Newcastle United," he admits.
