Levelling up, viability, decarbonisation, sustainable design and estate regeneration will be the key talking points at The Housing Forum’s next Councils Housing Conference.
Taking place on the morning of the 26th May, the online event will run from 9.30am to 12.30pm and is open to members of The Housing Forum, local authorities, housing associations, developers and regeneration partners. John East, Local Councils Advisory Group Chair and Interim Strategic Director for Place at Winchester City Council will be chairing the conference.
The packed agenda includes sessions on the viability challenges facing local authorities, with a presentation from Joanne Payne, Local Councils Advisory Group Deputy Chair and Service Manager for Housing Growth at Sheffield City Council. Joanne will share her perspective on the current construction market conditions, as well as the funding and site challenges, and go on to deliver another session, with commentary from Dan Massie, Head of Development at The Hill Group, which will look at how many homes have not been taken forward into development due to viability issues within the last two years.
Local authority survey
Keen to garner opinion from local authorities on the issues surrounding housing viability, The Housing Forum has compiled a survey. If you would like to participate and share your views, please click the Viability Survey link to take part. The Housing Forum will review the results at the conference and discuss what needs to change.
Airey Miller’s Senior Director, Caroline Pillay, and Project Director, Ed Richards, will deliver a session looking at the components of planning successful estate regeneration, which will include case study examples and a 10-point guide to planning successful regeneration schemes.
Sustainability and decarbonisation
‘Sustainable Design for Local Authorities – What’s the problem?’ will be the focus of the next session on the conference agenda. Here, BPTW Partner, Neill Campbell and Passivhaus Designer, Dido Graham will cover key topics, from procurement, funding, design development and community co-design, to affordable housing need and local authority policy. They will highlight effective ways to set and negotiate priorities when balancing often competing requirements against high sustainability standards, as well as reference successful Passivhaus and net zero projects from the London Borough’s of Hammersmith, Fulham and Newham.
The Housing Forum Decarbonisation Scoping Group has been meeting regularly to share insights on how the sector is dealing with the challenges surrounding the journey towards net zero. Caroline Compton-James, Public Sector Director, Osborne Construction and Deputy Chair of The Housing Forum will share findings from the first two webinars — ‘Systems and Strategies’ and ‘Decarbonisation — delivery for the housing sector’, consider the next steps in the programme and talk about the results of the ongoing survey by The Housing Forum’s Futures Network.
Council housebuilding and levelling up
Hugh Jeffrey, Regional Development Director for Wates Residential and Neil Stubbings, Director of Regeneration Programmes at the London Borough of Havering, will share details of their organisation’s 12-year joint venture partnership to regenerate 12 estates across the borough and create 3,500 much needed new homes. Established in 2018, the £1bn project is seeking to double the amount of council rented accommodation and more than double the number of affordable homes in the borough.
Darren Ashworth, Partner at Trowers & Hamlins, will lead the final session of the morning, which will focus on levelling up and the need for a more holistic funding approach to make projects viable, and address issues surrounding the lack of infrastructure to service new homes and development on greenbelt. Following this there will be an opportunity to participate in break out rooms and progress the discussion on levelling up, before final feedback is given and the event concludes.
The full conference programme is available here.
Register for the conference here.
Header image ©nrqemi/AdobeStock
