Why we are Planning Ahead for Housing
Community Housing & Investment Consortium (CHIC) will be hosting its 11th annual conference & exhibition on Thursday 16th June, returning to the Sixways Stadium in Worcester. This popular event is free for delegates. Attendees have praised CHIC’s conferences for their great networking opportunities, informative content and wide range of speakers, but what makes this year different?
Planning Ahead for Housing
As a procurement consortium with over 200 members, mainly from the housing sector, the dedicated members service delivery team has a unique insight into the behaviors of the housing and construction sectors.
Registered Providers face some big challenges, including cost inflation, material and labour shortages, the need to reduce carbon emissions and a housing shortage. We need to invest in our current homes and build many new ones. Efficient responses to all these challenges are imperative.
Common practice is to take a reactive approach to asset management and development programmes. What this leads to is a tunnel vision, putting aside the strategy required for longevity.
At the 2022 CHIC Conference, CHIC wants to look ahead. What should the plan be for housing and construction investment to ensure what we do now is really going to be fit for the future?
Why would you want to attend?
The conference is designed to promote the sharing of ideas and collaborating to achieve great outputs, the essence of CHIC itself. Previous events have seen upward of 500 delegates from the housing and construction sectors.
The Government mandate for a 30% cut in carbon for all new buildings as set out in the Levelling Up paper is due to come into force in June, great timing to discuss the immediate implications on planned programmes with sector colleagues at this great event.
By gathering likeminded individuals who are heading in the same direction, it encourages greater thought and business development opportunities. Whether this be hearing from experts and sector leaders at a workshop or speaking to the 40+ exhibitors throughout the day, those attending will leave with newfound knowledge and a fresh perspective on how they can Implement change within their organisation.
BBC Home Editor Mark Easton is returning to chair the conference for the 5th year running. A hit with delegates, Mark has an exceptional track record in sparking great debate and challenging the speakers. The extended Q&A sessions at the end of each workshop will provide delegates with a prime opportunity to ask the important questions.
What can delegates look forward to?
CHIC has over 20 speakers lined up throughout the day, including Mike Perry from the Regulator of Social Housing and Chief Economist Trevor Williams.
Each speaker has been invited because of their expertise and knowledge, helping delegates better understand what they want to know, and more importantly what they need to know, to steer the sector in the right direction.
The vast amounts of information has been broken up into easily digestible presentations, spread across eight different sessions. These are all also available to delegates following the event so you can share with your colleagues and begin using what you learnt. Delegates can also look forward to meeting with the supply chain face to face, ask their questions and see some great products on display.
What will be discussed
The agenda has been shaped around upcoming challenges, both in the immediate future but also looking up to 30 years ahead. It is important to take a proactive approach to understanding what is coming, implementing the necessary changes now to save time, cost and effort later down the line.
The keynote session is based on the overarching theme “Planning Ahead for Housing”. With energy efficiency and sustainability standards coming into play over the next 30 years, CHIC has invited three leading sector figures to discuss their unique perspectives on what Registered Providers need to be doing right now to help shape the future of housing.
Returning topics of discussion this year include whether todays building safety standards are going to be fit for the future, including fire precautions and sustainability, and how changes such as developing more offsite manufactured homes are going to warp procurement compliance.
Another theme carried over from previous years is how housing associations can work collaboratively with their supply chain to tackle the pressures such as stock shortages and lead times, to create efficiencies and continuity of supply.
Utilising data effectively to make informed decisions and in turn being intelligent when it comes to asset management is an emerging topic. This follows CHIC’s new framework for Digital Asset Delivery a few months prior, supporting the ‘golden thread’ of information.
The full programme for the day can be found on the CHIC website at www.chicltd.co.uk/event/chic-conference-exhibition-22
John Fisher, Chief Executive of CHIC said “We are very proud to be hosting another annual conference this year. We now have a decade of experience and with each subsequent year, have hosted an even better event in terms of quality of content, experience and engagement.”
“I look forward to seeing sector colleagues again in June and hope all sponsors, exhibitors and delegates achieve great value from the day. Please do invite your colleagues to come and join us, along with any board representatives who are also welcome.”
Attendance is free and those wishing to attend can register a place.