Modern methods can drive sustainable homes
By Tina Barnard, Chief Executive for Watford Community Housing.
Amidst labour shortages, skyrocketing material costs and a need for 345,000 new homes per year, it is a difficult time for those in the housing industry. Particularly when we consider that as housing demand has increased, so has the pressure upon providers to reduce environmental impact without sacrificing productivity. Recent changes to building regulations also indicate that new build homes must produce around 30% lower CO2 emissions than current standards, so meeting these restrictions is tougher than ever, but it needn’t be.
For us to manufacture housing in a sustainable manner, we must continue to increase the adoption of off-site manufacturing (OSM) techniques and partnership working. At Watford Community Housing, these partnerships are integral to housing provision that is accurately tailored towards the specific needs of a particular area, whilst OSM is playing a key role in addressing the need for cost-effective, sustainable homes.
Back in 2018, working with the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), we led on forming a Hertfordshire-based consortium with the intention of educating on and encouraging the use of OSM to accelerate housing provision,
Since then, the Hertfordshire OSM consortium has grown to over 20 members, with scores of both housing associations and local authorities working in partnership on OSM projects that are building a sustainable, affordable future for Hertfordshire. At Watford Community Housing in particular, we’ve utilised OSM on over 30 homes, with the express target of 50% of our developments to use OSM by 2025. We’ve also seen the educational benefits of both OSM and partnership working come to the fore, as Stewart Milne has partnered with West Herts College to offer a new vocational apprenticeship programme in sustainable methods of construction.
Throughout the pandemic, our use of OSM has been key to continued development. Factory automation meant that construction could continue at a time when COVID was knocking through traditional construction crews, whilst the precise nature of modular and timber frame builds meant that we could accurately forecast costs when additional raw materials would have proven expensive and difficult to obtain.
By constructing large elements of these homes in a fixed facility, on-site waste was all but eliminated and we greatly reduced on-site noise, which, with so many people working from home was no small thing. OSM will also prove a highly useful tool in complying with new government restrictions on CO2 emissions, as on average OSM homes outperform current building regulations on thermal efficiency by approximately 37%.
As of June 2020, the proportion of new homes built in the UK using OSM was estimated at somewhere between 6 and 10%, but over the coming decade I would expect this to grow quickly.
To meet the demand for new homes and comply with strict regulations around emissions, it is imperative that we in Hertfordshire continue to work together and up the ante on our use of OSM.
Overall, OSM has proven a boon to Hertfordshire so far, fostering collaboration and enabling us to adapt to the problems created by the pandemic, and it’s important that we think bigger, build smarter and continue to deliver future-proofed homes that are as efficient as possible.