HOMES UK: key themes of partnerships, MMC, and risk sharing

By Victoria Tomlinson · 7 December 2022

A few weeks ago, we attended and exhibited at the Homes UK conference. The quality of the sessions delivered over the two days was impressive and they covered a huge range of topics from the impact of cost-of-living rises on the sustainability agenda, master classes in achieving Net Zero Carbon, partnerships and their role in delivering truly inspiring regeneration schemes and a focus on the benefits of MMC.

I chaired a session around the impact of cost-of-living increases, with speakers Dan Pardesi from Inenco and Tim Weightman from Places for People. Dan shared his insights into the energy market and outlined the benefits of long-term energy strategies for Housing Providers and how they can protect customers living with communal heating systems, as in the majority of cases these are not subject to energy price caps meaning customers’ bills have risen astronomically.

Tim shared his experiences of the impact of the cost of living rises on Places for People’s customers and their plans to continue to improve the energy efficiency of their homes despite the challenges the current economic climate presents. I am sure anyone attending this session will agree these two speakers left us all feeling re-energised and inspired.

There were a number of key themes that I took away from the conference. The first of which was Partnerships. If we could all remove the barriers created by commercial sensitivity and worked together to share learning and solutions to our current challenges, we could increase our outputs but more importantly increase the impact of our services for our customers.

The second theme was around MMC. It was really refreshing to listen to such honest sessions that outlined what has and hasn’t worked for housing providers when delivering MMC schemes. It is clear many of us need to engage with MMC further and engage with others who are more than willing to share their experiences.

My final key theme was Risk Sharing. The current economic challenges have resulted in contractors being expected to take more than their fair share of apportioned risk. This is pushing prices up further and breaking down the good relationships that have been built historically. Exploring different forms of contracts, such as Partnering or Open Book is likely to enable developing housing providers to achieve the best outcomes from a cost and quality perspective.

ARK is committed to helping the social housing sector deliver sustainable high-quality homes that make the lives of residents and wider communities better. If you would like support with your development and regeneration schemes, then please just get in touch. Contact Victoria Tomlinson at vtomlinson@arkconsultancy.co.uk or call 0121 5153831