Building New, Affordable, Sustainable Social Housing for the Future SCALA Jane Briginshaw October 2012

Contents  Current delivery context  HCA purpose and vision  Building homes for the long term  Design research and delivery

Current delivery context  Limited public funding  HCA investment is focused on 4 key areas: Affordable housing Renewal of existing social housing stock Land and regeneration Economic Assets Programme  Focus on growth

The HCA role We are the people who help get things done…  Working with people and places to enable them to deliver homes, economic growth and jobs  Delivering programmes of investment  Making best use of our land and that of government/ other public bodies  Undertaking robust economic regulation of social housing providers HCA Purpose: to contribute to economic growth by helping communities to realise their aspirations for prosperity and to deliver quality housing that people can afford

The Challenge: Building Homes for the long term Affordable Homes Programme  The HCA’s existing Design and Quality Standards esign-and-sustainability-standards are to be used for the setting Code for Sustainable Homes level 3 as the minimum standard on all grant funded schemes. esign-and-sustainability-standards Land disposals and Economic assets  New disposals are set at local authority standards Local Authorities developing their own standards-  Supported by HCA September announcements  First Buy, Empty Homes, Guarantees, Section 106 pilots

The current context National government context Government-led, high profile review to be announced today to report Spring 2012 ‘a fundamental and urgent review led by Government working with interested parties to rationalise these standards. This review will result in a clear plan of action by next spring’ (September 2012)’ Standards review group Contestable Policymaking Challenge Panel

The current context National government context The new Growth and Infrastructure Bill to ‘help the country compete on the global stage by setting out a comprehensive series of practical reforms to reduce confusing and overlapping red tape’ October 18 th ‘Getting building going on stalled housing sites, by allowing the reconsideration of economically unviable 'Section 106' agreements. This could release some of the 75,000 affordable and private homes currently stalled. Unrealistic conditions currently mean no development, no regeneration and no community benefits’

Evidence from our customers NAHP  Evidence published at /quality-counts /quality-counts  We reviewed 520 schemes and interviewed 973 residents  Residents were overwhelmingly positive. The vast majority (93%) when asked “Overall, how satisfied are you with your home” gave a rating of four or five.  In answer to “Do you like your home and do you feel comfortable there” the average score was 4.59 “We love it” “It’s like heaven” “Beautiful house, perfect” “Comfortable and secure” “Couldn’t be happier”

Design Research and Delivery  Evidence from our customers  Long term programmes- learning the lessons  In depth technical research and sharing good practice

Learning the Lessons  Design for Manufacture began in 2005, several phases with same brief allowed lessons to be learned and improvements made  Detailed evaluations carried out post occupation to assess technical performance and what residents thought  Current phase on site, adapts to economic climate. High quality-space and CSH 4 affordable, very popular

The Carbon Challenge  Learning from large scale delivery of high performance homes CSH3  Supporting government to understand challenges involved in delivery of 2016 zero carbon standard at higher Code levels  Focus on detailed aspects such as fabric first to build industry capacity

Conclusions  HCA’s work with local partners key to delivering Government’s objectives on localism, growth and regulation  Through our investment we can influence design and sustainability and help spread good practice

homesandcommunities.co.uk /HCA_UK /homes-&-communities-agency