My friend Trevor Hendy, who has died aged 89, was director of development at United Kingdom Housing Trust (UKHT) in the 1980s, a period in which, among other things, he brought back to life its Arlington House property, a 900-bed hostel for working men in north London that had fallen into squalor under private ownership. Trevor oversaw much-needed improvements to living conditions there, and the hostel (of which I was a board member) is still operating.
He left UKHT in the late 80s to set up a housing consultancy, Chapman Hendy Associates, with Peter Chapman, which helped housing associations to make their planned developments a reality and played a key role in the setting up of new organisations to receive the transfer of thousands of homes from local authorities.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne to Arthur, a joiner, and his wife, Nora (nee Finlay), Trevor grew up in nearby Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, where he went to the local grammar school. Afterwards he studied architecture at evening classes while working during the day as a clerk in the office of a chartered architect and surveyor.
That early arrangement was interrupted by national service, which he fulfilled at Nato’s headquarters in Fontainebleau, France, on account of his good spoken French. The posting gave him a chance to explore France, enjoy picnics by the Seine and to play football for his unit against French and Dutch Nato teams.
On his return to the UK he studied with the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, while simultaneously working as an architectural assistant at St Pancras borough council, which became part of the London borough of Camden in 1965. Qualifying in 1966, he moved on in 1971 to become an architect at Oxfordshire county council and with his wife, Evelyn (nee Van den Driessche), a BBC production secretary whom he had married in 1965, moved to Woodstock, where they had the fun of designing their own house.
Trevor stayed at Oxfordshire until 1974, when he went back to London to become a project manager for the United Housing Associations Trust (UHAT), a predecessor of the UKHT, and a passion for social housing was born. He worked for UKHT from 1981 to 1988, when he left to co-found Chapman Hendy Associates.
A board member of the Housing Associations Charitable Trust, he will be remembered in housing circles not just for his achievements, but for his gentle kindness and unstinting support for colleagues, clients and partners alike.
Outside work he served on the committee of Cherwell Housing Trust for 25 years. In 1975 he was co-founder of Woodstock Music Society and in 1991 he was instrumental in preventing the closure of Oxfordshire Museum, after which he helped to set up revenue-generating initiatives to keep it going.
In retirement he was involved in governing Woodstock primary school, the Marlborough School Parents Association and Friends of the Oxfordshire Museum.
He is survived by Evelyn, their two children, Juliet and Nick, and his twin brother, Stuart.
