social housing

Boden Fire & Security has announced a new partnership with leading gate and barrier manufacturer Roger Technology. Italy based Roger Technology is one of the worldwide leaders in gate automation and priority vehicle automatic barrier systems with sales in over 100 countries. The new agreement allows Boden to offer a full supply and installation service for the entire Roger Technology range throughout South West and Southern England.

In my last editorial piece for Housing Association I wrote about the government’s proposed changes to the Building Regulations as they relate to fire and broadly welcomed them (the main concern is that the very sensible measures proposed for high-rise residential buildings should also be applied to their shorter cousins).

But principles are only as good as the way that they are applied, and in terms of fire protection, and of smoke protection in particular, the devil is certainly in the detail. If these systems are to work properly they have to be designed properly, installed properly and maintained properly. Sadly, this does not always happen.

Social housing provider Stonewater has been named Legal & General Affordable Homes’ (“Legal & General”) largest management partner. Stonewater is supporting the organisation in delivering its ambitious development plan of building 3,000 homes by 2022, by leading on Legal & General’s housing operations across England.

The not-for-profit organisation is one of 14 housing organisations appointed as management partners to Legal & General. Stonewater is first expected to take over the management of 300 homes across England – in areas like Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Hertfordshire and Central Bedfordshire  – between now and March 2020, with another 700 to follow.

Current construction methods are so wasteful we must effect change. Housing Association Magazine Editor Joe Bradbury looks at ways in which social housing can lead the way to more sustainable construction.
At a recent event at Mitsubishi Electric’s Hatfield headquarters, just shy of 200 specifiers, architects, Housing Associations, housebuilders and heating engineers gathered to hear a passionate presentation from architect and TV presenter, George Clarke where he called on the housing sector to radically transform the way we build homes.

AG, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of innovative concrete products, has launched a new Fine Cast Brick which has been developed specifically with Housing Associations and Private Developments in mind. 

Coadjute, a platform for decentralised workflow and data sharing within the property industry, and several UK housing associations have completed a prototype of Quality Chain, a workflow application aimed at making the construction of housing simpler and safer.

The Coadjute platform uses R3’s Corda distributed ledger technology and designed to unify organisations involved in the development of housing projects from inception through to construction and occupation, Quality Chain captures and tracks a single version of key decisions, documentation and information.  It creates the ‘golden thread’ of accountability and transparency identified as necessary by the Hackitt Report.

The United Kingdom has the oldest and leakiest housing stock in Europe, with almost 38% of our homes dating from 1946 or before . One of the biggest challenges we therefore face as a nation is how to improve the energy performance of existing buildings. The answer lies in innovative approaches to retrofit, and with a new and exclusive Whole House Retrofit Zone, Futurebuild 2020 will be the go-to destination for all the latest thinking and opportunities in this field.