Quadrant Housing Issue 06

Can Unreal Engine 5 Help Improve Housebuilding?

Thinking outside the box will help us reach 300,000 homes annually.

As the GMCA announced a whole wave of policies to bridge the digital divide in the North West, Quadrant Housing explores the requirements for funding and the potential to revolutionise the housing sector.

In this issue, Quadrant Housing analyses how the sector can make the best use of new and existing technology to meet the changing landscape of the housing sector, whether the housing delivery test will be positive for local authorities, and how a retrofit revolution can create two million jobs.

With a specific focus on how the social housing sector can expand its housing stock faster, Quadrant Housing dives into the most topical discussions and debates about the future of the housing industry.

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Floyd March f.march@peloton-events.co.uk

Core Internet Providers to Reduce Digital Divide Across GMCA

Bridging the digital divide within the social housing sector has been a part of local authorities’ social value plans for years. GMCA hopes to have cracked the code with its most recent digital inclusion pilot.

With the Greater Manchester Combined Authority bringing a group of internet providers, social housing and local authorities together, social housing residents across the North West are set to receive better connectivity.

Including plans to develop affordable internet access in the city region, GMCA has hopes to match BT, Hyperoptic, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, O2 and Vodafone with Bolton at Home, Southway Housing, Stockport Homes, Leigh Homes and Wythenshawe Community Housing Group.

Pilot to lay the foundations for further study

Initially focussing on 1000 residents in the local area, the pilot will provide vital information on the main barriers to digital inclusion and develop sustainable interventions that can be scaled up to more residents in the future.

There are other hopes to build a framework that can be used in other cities across the UK, including London, Birmingham and across Teeside.

Ensuring all age groups and demographics are included in the pilot, there will be a particular focus on people aged over 75, those with disabilities and vulnerable younger residents.

Working with each demographic, a framework will be created on how to specifically improve digital issues with each group, as there may be wide and varying needs for each group. It will be key to establish what the minimum standards for connectivity should be.

The largest pilot of its kind across Europe

As the programme is aimed at reaching 5,000 households, it is considered to be the largest digital inclusion social housing intervention across the whole of Europe. Previous research concluded that: “Up to 60% of social housing residents, who account for around 20% of the population in Greater Manchester, face varying levels of digital exclusion.”

Speaking in an address, Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “I believe that digital connectivity should be recognised as a basic human right –and treated as a utility like water, gas, and electricity.”

Continuing, he explained: “By bringing together five of the UK’s biggest internet service providers with five social housing providers from across the region, we’ll be able to understand better the challenges behind that belief as we attempt to tackle digital exclusion within social housing settings.”

Despite being in its infancy, the pilot has already attracted interest from academic institutions working on digital inequality. It has been declared that its learnings will be shared in a series of virtual events beginning in November 2022.

Andy Burnham Mayor of Greater Manchester

I believe that digital connectivity should be recognised as a basic human right – and treated as a utility like water, gas, and electricity.

Will Authorities Improve on the Previous Housing Delivery Test?

Ahead of the annual release of the Housing Delivery Test, Quadrant Housing takes an exclusive insight into the most recent report and reflects on Quadrant’s previous investigation.

Last January, after the Housing Delivery Test Measurement was released, Quadrant Smart highlighted why 50 out of 309 Local authorities delivered less than 75% of the housing requirements.

At the time, underperforming regions were to be subjected to sanctions, with placement on specific action plans based on the severity of the underperformance. Whether this will be in place as Michael Gove was reappointed Sec for DLUHC or whether a new approach will be taken remains to be seen.

Regional disparities were found across England

On the whole, different regions performed to varying levels of standards. For example, the Midlands over delivered by 84%, while the East of England delivered 50% of the required housing.

On top of this, Quadrant Housing found that nearly a quarter of Northern local authorities underdelivered on its requirements.

While this is a difficult statistic to generalise, as populations differ widely across regions, it is representative of the targets that they have been set, which were dependent on factors such as population, available land etc.

Naturally, funding for local authorities was found to be a barrier to development. Conservative ran local authorities performed on average 10% better than other authorities.

Greenfield land proved to be a barrier to delivery

Alongside funding issues, there were also geographical restrictions in some of the poorer-performing areas. Greenfield land dominated certain constituencies, and it affected the delivery of housing.

The tables opposite indicate the performance of each region in the UK as a total number of authorities and as a percentage.

This is something that has been discussed at great depth across the political spectrum, as key questions around greenfield land dominate the planning and building industry.

For example, Southend-on-Sea built 947 houses in the three years up to 2021 against the 3041 required. Delivering just 31% compared to the 2126% in Oxford, which was largely built on brownfield land. Not only this, but many authorities struggled against National parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). To tackle this issue without developing on such lands, the test changed the sanctions accordingly. The best way to do this was to reduce presumption in favour of sustainable development. In doing this, the balance of the test is fairly tilted.

With the pandemic shutting the world down in the period that the Delivery Test was conducted, naturally, fewer houses were built. Tackling this, the test adjusted the requirements to reflect the level of disruption.

To do this, the year up to March 2020 was reduced by one month, and the year up to March 2021 was reduced by four months. It equates to 97,000 reductions across the country.

COVID impacted results and clearer findings are set to come from the 2023 test

The outcome of this saw 66 local authorities see reduced sanctions and 25 local authorities avoiding presumption sanctions in favour of sustainable development. On top of this, 23 have avoided a 20% buffer to future housing needed, and 18 will not need to write an action plan.

While many authorities under-performed, those which did pass the delivery test did so by 578,000 homes over this period, against a requirement of 383,000.

A buffer is in place to ensure fair standards are in place

Some local authorities that delivered between 75-95% over the test period will be required to apply a 20% buffer to their housing need figure to mitigate potential under delivery in the future.

Over-performing one year shouldn’t impact future investment decisions if they fail to meet this new benchmark they set themselves, as uncontrollable variables may arise.

Those delivering over 85% will face a lesser sanction and will need to put together an action plan exploring ways to reduce the risk of further under-delivery within the next year.

As the newest Housing Delivery Test is set to be published in early 2023, all eyes will be on the authorities that have put in place action plans in an attempt to improve housing delivery.

How Will the Home Upgrade Hub Help Your Authority Get HUG 2 Funding?

The Home Upgrade Hub is the support service set up to help local authorities in England successfully apply for funding from the government's HUG 2 scheme. It will provide a range of services and advice developed by leading housing retrofit and grant application experts.

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the support service is delivered by Turner & Townsend.

Who is the Home Upgrade Hub aimed at?

Encompassing different bodies responsible for decarbonisation, the Home Upgrade Hub is available to all local authorities, combined authorities and net zero hubs in England. They are all invited to apply for HUG 2 funding to upgrade low-income, off-gas grid homes in their area to make them more energy efficient for the future.

Grants are available to install energy efficiency and clean heating improvements in owner-occupied and privately rented sector homes rated EPC band D-G.

Sixty per cent of the total funding will be ringfenced for rural LAs. This is an essential aspect of the HUG 2 plans, as rural communities have unique and differing challenges to decarbonisation.

Local authorities across rural England have often felt left out of support packages that urban areas tend to take advantage of, so HUG 2 funding has been well received across areas such as the Midlands, the South West and across Humberside.

It is important to highlight that authorities can apply individually or as a member of a consortium of multiple LAs.

What support is available?

BEIS has established the Home Upgrade Hub to provide technical support for all applicants interested in accessing funding under HUG 2.

Technical assistance for the HUG 2 grant application process will be delivered under the Home Upgrade Hub through the scheme's commercial, technical support partner, Turner & Townsend.

The Home Upgrade Hub explained: "We want to help support LAs through the application process, ensuring all eligible projects successfully receive the necessary funding. Therefore technical support from the Home Upgrade Hub will be available to LAs at key stages during the development of their applications."

Expanding on the grant itself, HUG 2 is a grant funding scheme that has been set up to help LAs provide energy efficiency upgrades and clean heating systems to lowincome households. The scheme targets the worst performing (EPC band D-G) off-gas grid homes in England.

We will be populating this website with various resources and materials to provide relevant support to LAs, including webinars, masterclasses, podcasts and information about available one-to-one support.

A key focus of the scheme is to phase out the use of fossil fuel heating and make progress towards the UK's 2050 Net Zero commitment. It will also support improved household health and well-being by reducing the number of cold homes and play a key role in the government's wider programme of green retrofit.

How has the HUG evolved from the first phase?

HUG 2 is the second phase of the Home Upgrade Grant which will build on the success of the scheme's first phase. That has already allocated £218m to 42 projects covering over 200 local authority areas.

The most important difference in HUG 2 is that the scheme is transitioning away from a competition model used previously to a challenge fund.

This means that applications will be assessed against a minimum set of criteria rather than competing against other bidders for a limited share of the total funds. All successful applicants will also be able to receive some funding.

HUG 2 is set to allocate up to £700m, with funding expected to be delivered from early 2023 to 2025.

Of the total HUG 2 funding, 60% will be ringfenced for rural LAs (as defined by Defra's Rural-Urban Local Authority Classification). The remaining 40% will not be ringfenced and so will be available to both rural and urban LAs.

All properties eligible for HUG 2 funding must be domestic off-gas grid dwellings with an EPC rating of band D or lower.

Eligible

households for the scheme must either:

• Have a combined gross annual income of under £31,000, which must be verified, or

• Be located in an economically deprived neighbourhood (based on data drawn from the Indices of Multiple Deprivation 2019)

What is the application process?

The application process involves two application stages, with a delivery assurance check between them. For HUG 2, 20% of funds will be granted as an upfront payment to help LAs resource and mobilise their projects.

• Outline application | Applicants will be asked about their project's size, questions on commercial and delivery assurance, as well as their approach to low-income targeting and verification. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be offered to applicants who are successful at this stage. BEIS will award total funding for the project in principle, which can then be drawn down throughout the lifetime of the project. The submission deadlines for these assessment rounds are 18 November 2022 and 27 January 2023.

• Delivery assurance check | This check will assess LAs on their readiness to begin delivery, with a focus on their progress in resourcing and procurement.

• Batch application | Housing stock data, measure mixes, and costs for a specific set of 'ready to retrofit' homes are submitted at the batch stage. If approved, the LA will draw down funds from BEIS to deliver the upgrades. This final step is then repeated throughout the delivery window.

Could Game Engines be the Answer to Stagnating Housebuilding?

The video gaming and housing sector seem worlds apart. One is typically aimed at destroying things, and the other is about building things. However, that might be all about to change as Resolution Studios is using Unreal Engine 5 as an interior design tool for the housing sector.

Resolution Studios provide 3D visualisation and animations for Architects and Interior Designers. They transform architectural and interior design concepts into photo-realistic visualisations that generate interest, excitement and confidence in your scheme.

The models are dimensionally accurate, combining advanced lighting techniques and detailed textures to give you and your clients an insight into your project long before it's completed.

Quadrant Housing spoke with Jamie Wilkes, Director at Resolution Studios who explained: "Developers in the commercial, residential and leisure sectors can benefit from using 3D visualisations to support planning applications, illustrate design ideas and show site layouts."

Planning applications can be complex for local authorities to see through, despite projects being positive for the region. For example, a net zero housing development in Lincoln was recently denied planning permission because of worries about the aesthetic of the development.

Technology is the bedrock of good planning practices

One of the core benefits of photo-realistic images is that they greatly enhance the marketing of new developments. For those that oppose the building of new developments, visually seeing a development created in Unreal Engine 5 may help change current perceptions. Jamie highlighted the importance of using technology that may not have been used across the sector before to boost innovation and improve services. He added: "Unreal Engine 5 provides a unique opportunity to explore our own buildings. Going forward, more and more architects are seeing the benefit of using game engines, especially with the graphics available today."

Local Authorities want two things: decreasing costs and increasing productivity

Local authorities often look for solutions that can save time and reduce costs as budgets get slashed, but the needs of the citizen change. A further benefit to working within Unreal Engine 5 is that it matches these two critical requirements from authorities and associations across the UK.

Expanding on this, Jamie told Quadrant Housing: "We can take our 3D models into the game engine, which opens up the ability to generate the frames for our animations more quickly and cheaply as it isn't subbed to render farms. Rather than taking days to render, the game engine can do it in hours and minutes."

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Speeding up decisionmaking is vital for growth

This is vital for local authorities looking to expand their use of technology to rescue time and costs and ultimately deliver for their constituents. Being an early adopter of such technology will enable authorities to set the benchmark for neighbouring regions to follow suit.

Echoing this, Jamie explained: "Going forward, the industry is continuously approaching a technical revolution. Such technology is an effective way to make better decisionsas you can go around the property virtually and capture the essence of whether a room is going to be big enough etc."

Implementing new technology is all about breaking down barriers to reading and interpreting architect's plans, and this technology goes a long way toward achieving this goal.

Planning processes are so long and complex, and generally, the processes seem to be even slower post-covid. Services like this can be improved by "distributing information and proposed design a lot more effectively."

While it may not have specific impacts on planning decisions, this type of technology will undoubtedly help make the decisionmaking process faster, which is evidently one of the biggest bottlenecks to growth in the UK.

New technology needs to feel normal as soon as possible

As Quadrant Housing speaks to more public and private sector innovators, the most apparent message is that new technology needs to be 'normalised' as quickly as possible. There is an unaddressed stigma around new technology, and changing people's perspectives on things being new is a difficult task.

In an anecdote provided by Jamie, he explained how there are times when discussing technology when people hear game engines and stare blankly in return. He explained: "It is brilliant technology; we [the housing sector] just need to explain new technology effectively to decisionmakers. UE5 is the next-gen technology; in five years' time, processing power will increase then we can advance more and more; it is an exciting time for the industry."

Whether Game Engines can reduce the stagnation in housebuilding from the early stages of development remains to be seen, but the optimism around the sector continues to grow.

Jamie Wilkes Resolution Studios

Upcoming Events

As Quadrant’s 2022 event series comes to a close, we are excited to announce our lineup of one-day conferences spanning over the next year.

Focussing on how technology can improve our new and existing housing stock, Quadrant Smart will be bringing the public and private sectors together to share best practice, collaborate and offer innovative solutions to ambitious government targets.

Highlighting three core regions in the UK, secure your attendance for Manchester, Yorkshire and Wales & Western to showcase your innovations and solutions to local authorities and housing associations across the UK.

Eradicating Damp and Mould Will Save Wider Society £18bn Per Year

How local authorities maintain their housing stock has been changing more over the last five years than in the previous four decades combined.

Glasgow City Council has recently joined the technology hype and implemented a pilot scheme for IoT sensors.

Working with IoT technology company North and two registered social landlords, 30 homes will be provided with Tempus sensors to monitor temperature and humidity levels and increase maintenance speeds across the housing stock.

Implementing the best technology will record information at a blistering pace

With readings being recorded every 30 minutes through the IoT Scotland network, local authorities and housing associations can respond proactively and stop mould and damp developing into more severe health problems.

Included as part of Glasgow’s Digital Housing Strategy, there is a strong commitment from the local authority to develop and standardised approach to data collection, storage and analysis.

The council said that more than 75 % of the RSLs in the city have confirmed they would welcome the use of IoT devices, and there are hopes that the pilot could be followed by installing sensors in hundreds more homes.

Looking at this project on a resident level will help reduce the impacts that mould and damp currently have on residents across the UK. An estimated £38 million is spent on treating the impact of damp.

Low-quality housing has astronomical costs to society

The longer-term impact of low-quality housing, including people left unable to work or to need care costs society £18.5 billion pounds every year, according to a BRE report.

Cllr Kenny McLean, city convenor for housing at Glasgow City Council, said: “Our work with our partners on this pilot IoT project will see the use of technology that will hopefully improve the lives of residents and the condition of their homes."

The success of this pilot could pave the way for wider adoption of such technology to optimise energy efficiency, in turn reducing fuel poverty and the impact of housing on the environment and improve the delivery of housing and other services to households.

Cllr Kenny McLean Glasgow City Council

State of the Industry Report 2022: A Deep Dive into the Sector

Data centre and technology sectors continue to grow with no signs of slowing, despite the current global economic and political uncertainties.

That's the essence captured by the Keysource Group ‘State of the Industry Report 2022.’ Split into five sections; the report analysed the core business and operational challenges while exploring the importance of sustainability and security in authorities' digitalisation plans.

As discussed in the 2021 report, Keysource Group reported on investment in the sector as double that of the previous year. Following the same trajectory, a similar trend driven by continued digitalisation, IT transformation and data growth has been found.

Jon Healy, Director and Richard Clifford, Head of Solutions, began: “Every year, we have seen the issue of sustainability in the sector increase in importance and 2022 is no exception, with data centres coming under particular scrutiny because of their total power consumption.”

While authorities across the UK are encouraged to digitalise their operations, careful note of how this can be done sustainably hinders the scalable approach needed to improve day-to-day operations.

Security is oddly both a primary objective and the largest barrier to digitalisation

Looking at the findings from a business perspective, over half of the respondents saw security as the biggest barrier to transitioning. “This is up from previous

years, with sustainability a close second [challenge] at 40%. Our survey highlights multiple concerns switch more than a third also citing pressure to adopt new technology, budget and access to skills as major challenges.”

In order to help curb some of these issues, 85% of people surveyed expect to expand their budget, a trend found over the last four consecutive years. The findings stated: “However, there is continued pressure to reduce overheads in other aspects of business spending to facilitate this.”

From a local authority perspective, this may prove challenging as budgets are already set to be cut in the 2022 Autumn budget, which poses the question of whether LAs will see increasing the best use of technology as a worthwhile investment. Additionally, questions are raised about whether the end user will pick up the tab of more sustainable data centres.

Cloud storage not proving to be the silver bullet as previously expected

Regarding operational challenges, IT decision-makers face issues as IT location has been considered much more closely over the last year. “This is driven by geographical or edge demand and a need to access cloud services.”

Furthermore, the report explained that less than half (43%) are continuing to adopt a cloud first strategy. According to the survey: “78% of respondents believe that their existing investments are preventing IT transformation.”

The industry is slowly transitioning from the notion that there is a one size fits all approach; while Cloud storage is a game changer, it still fails to be the holy grail for data transformation.

As previously mentioned, sustainability continues to be at the forefront of any policy coming from central and local governments across the UK. The survey

picked up on the notion explaining that: “Sustainability targets need to be joined up and aligned throughout an organisation for maximum impact with procurement being a key part ensuring the [technology] solutions and services are driven to measure, report and improve.”

Cyber attacks to get worse before they get better

This year has seen a dramatic rise in high profile and damaging cyber attacks, specifically across the housing sector. Almost a third of respondents believed security attacks are the biggest risk to their organisation.

Reporting on this issue, it stated: “whatever the cause, there is no doubt that the stakes are high and have been since 2018 when the UK GDPR and DPA set a maximum fine of £17.5m or 4% of annual growth (whichever is higher).”

Wrapping up the report, Keysource recognised: “Security continues to be an area where the industry needs significant focus to secure customer services and avoid commercial penalties.” One of the core reasons security is so hard to perfect is that all the other business, operational, skills gap and sustainability challenges are intertwined into creating a secure technology strategy for local authorities and housing associations.

Security continues to be an area where the industry needs significant focus to secure customer services and avoid commercial penalties.

Keysource Group State of the Industry Report 2022

Identifying Barriers to Retrofit and How to Unblock Them

The UK’s social rented sector is already investing and innovating in its quest to get to net zero. With the right financial stimulus, it could be a model for how to decarbonise the rest of the UK’s homes.

That’s the essence of the report, recently published by the Green Finance Institute, named ‘Retrofitting Social Housing: A Model for the UK.’

The Green Finance Institute captured this message after findings on the current financial landscape, barriers to retrofit - financial and non-financial - were compiled with a strong message for social and private housing in the UK.

As part of the UK government’s Clean Growth Strategy, all fuel-poor homes must be brought up to an EPC rating of C by 2030. The energy performance of the UK’s social rented sector is significantly better than private housing, partly because of energy efficiency and fuel poverty regulations.

The sector is already investing and driving innovation in this area. As a result, “64.3% of housing association homes already have an EPC rating of C or above, according to The National Housing Federation’s report, compared to 35.6% of owneroccupied homes.”

The report began by exploring the current financial landscape: “The need to improve the energy efficiency of social rented housing and provide warm, comfortable homes for tenants is even more pressing at a time of high energy costs, which are increasing the financial burden for residents.”

Public and private investments needed to support long-term goals

Significantly, many social housing providers can tap into private funding to boost many retrofit objectives. On the surface, the business case can be seen as strong as the sector’s robust regulatory framework; the long-term cash flow forecasts that social rents provide and the ability to secure financing against the housing stock itself, bond and loan finance has long provided the social housing sector with a sustained supply of low cost, long-term financing.

Speaking in the report David Willock, managing director of ESG Finance at Lloyds Bank, pointed out that the KPIs for sustainability-linked loans often include the decarbonisation of existing housing stock. “Last year, we helped to support £3.4 billion of finance into the social housing sector, and £2.4 billion of that was sustainability-linked or ESG labelled,” he said.

Core financial barriers remain in place

Despite public and private investment streams being implemented, the report offered a deep dive into the core financial barriers holding retrofit objectives back. Firstly, it explained how limited funds can be an issue: “At RSLs, energy efficient retrofits must compete for budget allocation, and nearly three in every four housing associations surveyed by the National Housing Federation in a September 2020 study said that concerns around funding were a key barrier to retrofitting at scale and pace.”

Access to capital has also been a concern for the sector: “Many smaller housing associations are not big enough to raise money in the capital markets,” with planning horizons not aligning with short-term government grant programmes, like the first wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, are difficult to reconcile with RSLs’ 30year stock improvement plans.

Another factor is that housing associations, the highest share of social housing stock, often have interest cover covenants in their existing bank loan facilities that prevent them from doing large-scale borrowing.

Potentially, one of the most significant barriers involves issues around no financial returns on investment. Even if they can borrow more, unlike the construction of new energy-efficient homes, which generate a new stream of rental income, “many energy efficient retrofits do not generate any revenue for RSLs, because landlords cannot change the level of rent charged and savings on energy bills after a retrofit generally goes to the tenant,” added the report.

Non-financial barriers are just as important to tackle

Some barriers to retrofit are non-financial, including skills and knowledge gaps, staffing constraints and critically, access to data. Annabel Gray, sustainability lead at consultancy and advisory firm Altair, explained: “It's quite easy just to panic, particularly when we've seen potential retrofit costs of £25,000 to £30,000 per unit discussed, but the reality is costs are much higher in a market of rising inflation.”

Additionally, the view of residents can be a significant barrier to retrofitting. Retrofit programmes can create warmer, more comfortable homes for residents and lower energy costs. Still, successful retrofits require a lot of resident engagement and trust, particularly for whole-house retrofits.

Financing Solutions

Local Climate Bonds

Government Guaranteed Social Finance

Leaseholder Financing

Comfort as a Service

Affordable Living

Metered Energy Savings

Sustainable Housing Label

How is Yorkshire Delivering for its Residents?

Building on the success of Smart Housing North West, Quadrant Smart will be coming to Leeds on 21 February 2023 to discuss the core issues and opportunities in the area.

As Yorkshire covers a vast area, including rural, suburban and urban areas, the region has a range of challenges to overcome in the housing sector. These range from net zero, retrofitting, improving cyber security and promoting regional innovation.

To tackle these objectives, Leeds City Council launched its Housing Strategy 2022-27, named Best City Ambition. Offering a whole range of opportunities, the strategy includes plans to deliver 928 mixed-tenure homes starting with an initial 311 energy-efficient affordable homes. This will build on the 54,000 council-owned dwellings currently in Leeds.

Deliverability is a core aspect of Leeds’ strategy

Responsible for roughly 2.2 per cent of England’s housing supply in 2021, Leeds has delivered 16,249 homes over the last five years. The strategy hopes to expand on these deliverability statistics and offer a framework for smaller authorities to implement similar projects.

The strategy also highlights the essential factor that the housing sector contributed roughly 27 per cent of CO 2 emissions in Leeds between 2019-20. The housing sector is critical in supporting the city’s net zero ambitions through this strategy.

Exploring the target outcomes of the strategy, it was announced that the authority hopes to deliver 800 new affordable homes per year over the next three years up to and including 2025.

Social value is just as important to focus on as building

Focussing on social values, Leeds City Council hopes to maximise the number of high-priority customers rehoused through the Leeds Homes Register and increase the number of customers currently on the Homes Register rehoused to the private sector.

While focusing on the transition of people into different tenure homes, another target outcome is to reduce the number of long-term empty homes in the city. The best way to reduce the impacts of the housing crisis is to make the most of the existing housing stock across the region. Retrofitting existing stock is high on the agenda in Leeds, with a costed policy to retrofit council housing by 2025, which involves £100m to be spent across the city. All buildings must meet the 2022 Building Safety Act protecting residents and avoiding another Grenfell-scale disaster. Additionally, Leeds is looking to maximise positive outcomes through the selective licensing scheme and improve SAP ratings to an average of C as soon as possible.

In Case you Missed it NORTH WEST

If you missed the Manchester event, then make sure you look at the highlight reel, which showcases the key events of the day and hear from our exhibitors and attendees. Here is a breakdown of the Smart Housing North West highlight reel where we heard from Cllr Gavin White from Manchester City Council, hosted panel debates and heard a range of presentations from industry leaders.

Exploring what just a few of our exhibitors had to say about innovating the sector, they had these clear messages for the housing industry.

Continuing our regionally focussed events in Yorkshire on 21 February 2023, you can secure your place as an exhibitor, headline sponsor or speaker today. See the next page for further details.

Creating Sustainable Homes for the Future

21 February, 2023 Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds

Why Smart Housing?

Housing is an integral part of the evolution of the Smart City. Never has it been more important to create sustainable urban areas which are designed for the future, whether that be retrofitting existing homes, achieving net zero carbon emissions, to smart placemaking.

By utilising the Smart Housing mindset, the entire housing sector can come together to deliver the urgent need for more sustainable homes, designed for future generations to live and work together.

Join us on 21 February 2023 at The Royal Armouries, Leeds , where housing leaders, experts and innovators will be discussing what is needed right now to drive meaningful change and create communities for the future.

Join the conversation #SmartHousing