Great Places Housing Group
Transforming Housing Services Online with a Bespoke, Scalable WordPress Platform
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Background
Great Places Housing Group is a leading not-for-profit housing association providing affordable homes, support services, and community investment across the North of England. With over 25,000 properties under management and a diverse customer base, the organisation plays a vital role in delivering safe, accessible, and sustainable housing.
As digital channels became increasingly important to tenant engagement, service delivery, and regulatory transparency, Great Places recognised that its legacy website was no longer fit for purpose. The platform was difficult to manage internally, lacked integration with modern tools, and failed to provide the performance, accessibility, and flexibility needed by both staff and service users.
6B was appointed as the digital delivery partner to design and build a future-proof WordPress platform — one capable of serving a large, multi-stakeholder organisation while meeting the specific governance and usability expectations of the UK public housing sector.
The Need
The previous Great Places website was built on a rigid, outdated framework that limited content management and made day-to-day updates complex and time-consuming. The CMS lacked the structure required to support service-specific content, role-based control, or dynamic content reuse — resulting in operational inefficiencies and inconsistent user experience.
Great Places needed a modern, scalable WordPress solution with the flexibility to support multiple departments, each with unique publishing and service delivery requirements. The new site had to support accessible design, granular permissions, performance optimisation, and seamless integration with third-party systems — all while remaining user-friendly for non-technical administrators.
Security and compliance were non-negotiable, with the platform expected to meet high standards of data protection, accessibility (WCAG 2.2), and information governance — especially in the context of public accountability and service provision.
The Solution
6B delivered a fully bespoke WordPress website for Great Places, built from the ground up using clean, standards-compliant code and a modular architecture designed for long-term evolution. The platform was developed without the use of page builders or bloated plugins, ensuring maximum performance, security, and maintainability.
We implemented custom post types and advanced content modelling to allow for structured, reusable content across key areas such as housing services, support programmes, community projects, and news. With Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), we created flexible content blocks that empowered internal teams to create rich, accessible layouts while maintaining full control over design consistency and editorial standards.
A key part of the build involved developing tailored user roles with fine-grained permissions — enabling different teams within Great Places to manage their own sections of the site independently, without the risk of cross-departmental conflicts or errors.
Performance was a top priority. 6B deployed server-level caching, lazy loading, asset minification, and a lightweight front-end framework to ensure fast load times and high Core Web Vitals scores. The front-end was designed to be fully responsive, with semantic HTML and ARIA attributes baked in to ensure full accessibility compliance from launch.
We also integrated key third-party tools such as housing application portals, repairs reporting, and CRM systems — ensuring a seamless user journey across digital touchpoints, while reducing support overhead for the internal team.
The Impact
The new Great Places website has significantly improved digital service delivery, internal efficiency, and user engagement. Non-technical teams are now able to update content quickly and confidently, using intuitive components built specifically around their needs.
Tenants and visitors benefit from a faster, more accessible platform that makes it easier to find services, apply for housing, or get support — while internal stakeholders gain better oversight, control, and operational agility.
By investing in a technically robust, bespoke WordPress build, Great Places now has a digital foundation that aligns with its core values: transparency, community impact, and long-term service delivery. The platform is built to scale, ready for future integrations, and designed to adapt — supporting the Group’s continued mission to create great homes, great communities, and great people.