Articles

With a healthy majority, what should the priority be for our Prime Minister?

George Clarke has a simple message for our PM and it’s all about fixing the housing crisis in the right way

The rise of smart technology is changing the reputation of construction, as the sector embraces innovative solutions to some of its more traditional challenges. Health and safety are obvious concerns across all of the UK’s industries, but it’s of particular importance within construction as the rate of fatal injury is around four times as high as the average rate across all industries.

Smart technology company, Eave, has developed a unique hearing conservation system to protect against hazardous noise and the solution is spreading rapidly across the construction industry, with recent subscribers to the technology including Galliford Try, Ferrovial and Costain Skanska. 

One of the fastest growing procurement consortiums, part of Places for People, a leading placemaker in the UK, is partnering with Impact Reporting, a cloud based social value monitoring and reporting platform to drive social value through every contract.

Procurement Hub, based in Preston, is working with Impact on a unique new business drive, which will see the procurement specialists help clients in the public sector maximise the amount of social value they generate through social and environmental endeavours. It will also allow clients to see the value of Impact’s platform and the importance of recording, analysing and reporting data from their purpose led initiatives.

Places for People invested in Impact Reporting last year, after working together for the last two years and is supporting the company’s expansion.

New Year’s Eve lies well behind us now as a milestone, sadly marking the end of another year of failure in housing policy. Home ownership feels like an impossible dream for the masses. Untold numbers of people are being pushed into homelessness. Where is it all going wrong? Housing Association Magazine’s Joe Bradbury takes a look:

Work is underway on a development of 23 new homes in Rowlands Gill.
 
The three and four bedroomed properties, at Gibside Chase, are being delivered by Gateshead Regeneration Partnership (GRP) on land formerly occupied by an Infant School, just off Sherburn Park Drive. 
 
The first homes are expected to be completed in the autumn and will be constructed by build partner, Vistry Partnerships.  A commitment has been made to use both local contractors and suppliers on the project – as well as to create employment and skills training opportunities for local people.
 
Nine of the homes will be of three-storey split level design, which will maximise views over the Gibside Estate and allow family living spaces to spill out into the generous back gardens. The rest of Gibside Chase will be traditional semi detached homes – but every house will benefit from higher space standards and energy efficiency and greater environmental performance than the average new build home.

A leading North East regeneration and housing specialist has started the new decade by signing deals with two regional housing providers that will deliver 418 new homes for all tenures on two prime sites. 

Vistry Partnerships – a new venture established following Bovis Homes’ £1.1 billion purchase of Galliford Try’s housing and regeneration businesses – will work closely with Beyond Housing in Redcar and The Riverside Group in Washington.

The initiatives have been carefully co-ordinated to meet the challenges of housing need and affordability within each locality and are among nine Vistry Partnerships North schemes which will deliver over 1,200 new homes across the North East.  

Both projects have grant support from Homes England – the government’s housing accelerator which works to increase the number and speed of new homes of all tenures across the country.

bylined by Adrian Judd, Operations Director at Steico UK

When building homes, too often the emphasis is on energy efficiency, airtightness and warmth, to ensure homes are cosy for occupants. 

You can always have too much of a good thing and airtightness can often lead to little ventilation and a low indoor air quality. 

Adrian Judd, operations director at Steico UK, explains how using natural materials in homes resolves this and actively promotes higher indoor air quality. 

Housing associations often house the most vulnerable people in society.  That means housing associations have more to gain from building homes which promote high quality indoor air.