Held this week in London, a Building Insights LIVE conference entitled ‘Warm Homes for Social Housing’ saw social housing professionals engage with the construction supply chain to discover the most practical strategies for providing more energy efficient, more comfortable homes for social housing tenants, and help protect them from fuel poverty.
With the £15bn Warm Homes Plan in place for providing energy efficiency upgrades to hundreds of thousands of homes over the next few years, the conference was well timed to share insights from experience of projects – from external wall insulation to heat pump installs at scale. Delegates candidly tackled some of the obstacles which exist for social housing teams and the project delivery side in this timely event. Subjects under discussion ranged from funding and skills shortages to the need for holistic one-hit approaches, good resident liaison, and post-occupancy evaluation of measures taken.
The keynote address by strategic consultant, Elaine Middleton, set out vividly the crucial concerns as well as opportunities for registered providers. She captured these in five key questions which teams needed to ask themselves: firstly, what was the actual problem they were looking to solve, then what do they know about the home, occupants, and the building condition, and what information is missing. Thirdly, “what needs to happen in this home (beyond already planned works),” and “What might be affected by the solution proposed.” Middleton’s fourth proposed question to ask was “Who should be involved (including what external help is required),” and lastly, how was the installation or retrofit going to be measured and evidence gathered to prove the home is “safer, more comfortable, more affordable and performing as intended?”
Elaine’s talk was referenced by several later speakers due to its practical relevance, and all of the presentations benefitted from a strong grounding in social housing deliverability, including case studies. Other talks included technical presentations from conference partners REHAU, UPOWA, K Systems, Intergas, Dimplex, E.ON Green Funding Solutions and Ambion, and all offered crucial insights into both the potential for good outcomes, and the potential issues.
An illuminating case-study focused talk from Ruth Dent, of Re:Gen Group showed the human impact of well-considered approaches to Warm Homes, but also how the projects did not need to be as “big and scary” as they may appear.
There was also a panel session featuring headline partners REHAU and UPOWA, and several key voices across the sector. Hosted by Matt Goodwin-Baird, founder of the Social Housing Round Table, this looked at the funding and organisational capacity of different providers for identifying and delivering the right solutions in each case, and the many challenges. Winchester City Council’s Ben Murphy offered the important insight that “not everyone who is qualified is competent, and not everyone who is competent is qualified,” i.e. ensuring the right qualifications are in place is not sufficient.
The audience also heard from Kate Watson of the RISE programme being delivered for DESNZ by Turner and Townsend, Elanor Warwick of the Good Homes Alliance, Paul Terry of UPOWA, Carly Woodbridge from Clarion Housing, and Mark Gajda of REHAU, who gave some very resonant anecdotal evidence on why each tenant and property should be treated differently. Finally the closing keynote came from Nick Murphy, chair of P3 Housing, who addressed the delivery of projects head on, in ‘Turning Ambition into Action.’ He left delegates with a slew of strong practical ideas for not only sourcing funding and other support, but also, like Ruth Dent, showed how deliverable many of these projects are for professionals, and helped reassure them on the do-ability side, despite the pressures.
Editor of Housing, Management and Maintenance, and the event’s co-host, James Parker commented: “Focused, in-depth conferences which bring key voices from the supply chain together with their clients to openly discuss a range of practical issues in this way are unusual. We are extremely proud to be able to harness the strengths of our readerships and commercial partners to share knowledge on delivering crucial KPIs, and contribute to practical improvements for tenants on the ground.
“Delegates were also able to network on multiple occasions throughout the event, and we saw new connections being formed which could lead to some fascinating best practice Warm Homes solutions in the sector. We would be delighted to report on these in coming years, and look forward to returning to this topic in a future conference event.”
A full report on the conference will be published as a supplement to the winter edition of Housing Management & Maintenance magazine, and online at insights.netmagmedia.co.uk