Andy Bonnington, who recently joined us as our new Director of Sustainable Assets provides an update on last year’s programme in terms of achievements and highlights and looks to what will be the key priorities in the year ahead.
2022 was an eventful year in the world of social housing assets and investment programmes, leading to an even sharper focus on what steps the sector needs to take to ensure our customers’ homes remain safe and of a decent standard.
Great Places is no exception, and in 2022/23 we spent a total of £17.2 million on improvements on our customers’ homes and building safety.
Alongside our routine investment work across our 25,000 homes, the team has also continued to work on several key investment projects.
Standout highlights have included improvement works at our Clifford Court scheme in Stockport, Windmill House in Blackpool, and Greyfriars in Sheffield.
Another key project has been our work on updating our NHS Key Worker accommodation at the Royal Oldham Hospital, following a successful pilot scheme last year. Oak House and Beech House contain 52 rooms managed by Great Places for medical professionals coming to work in the local area. Built in the 1970s this major refurbishment project has seen updates to the rooms, bathrooms, communal lounge, bedrooms and new roof and we’re looking forward to showing local stakeholders around the completed project in the next months.
Along with major investment projects, key investment programme headlines included:
Building safety and fire safety has continued to be a key focus for the team as we look to respond to the recent changes to fire safety regulations that came into force at the start of this year. In the past year we have spent £2.2m on a range of work including replacement flat entrance doors and smoke and fire detection systems in communal areas and other fire safety measures highlighted following detailed inspections. In the years since the Grenfell tragedy, there have been significant changes to building safety legislation requiring changes to the way that we manage our homes. We remain committed to making sure we take all the steps needed to ensure all our homes continue to be maintained to the highest possible safety standards.
Our decarbonisation retrofit programme also remains an important part of our team’s work as we look to meet the environmental commitment of becoming a net zero business by 2038. In the current cost of living crisis, improving the efficiency of our homes has become even more important for our customers too. The current focus is improving the energy performance ratings to an EPC C across all our homes and in the past 12 months we have reduced the number of homes below this target to 3360. To support our work in this area, we successfully bid for £1.4 million in funding from Wave 2 of the Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, which will support a range of works to get 396 homes in Greater Manchester and Sheffield to C rating over the next two years.
Heat Networks have also come into focus for landlords ahead of their Ofgem regulation. In preparation for the planned changes, we appointed specialist consultancy Chirpy Heat, to look at our policies, billing, administration, and procedures and reports on their findings. From this review an action plan has been developed and a Heat Network Manager and a Metering & Billing Co-ordinator will be recruited to implement their recommendations.
In 2021/2022 Great Places secured funding to carry out an optimisation study of our Richmond Park Heat Networks, nine heating systems serving 299 customers in Sheffield. During the 2022/2023 we have built on this, and a specialist consultancy Fairheat has produced an implementation plan which will look to improve the existing networks’ fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and lower costs for customers. The total cost of these works is estimated to exceed £3 million with 50% of the costs for these improvements being covered funding secured from the Department of Energy Security & Net Zero. Further heat network optimisation studies are also planned to take place at our Elk View Court and Tulloch Court extra care schemes in Blackpool and Hutton Lodge in Withington after successfully securing government funding.
Throughout the past year, the team has remained focused in addressing sector-wide challenges head on and delivering our investment programme. This is a real testament to the dedication and commitment shown across the team.
In the next 12 months, retrofit, fire and building safety will remain key issues as we look to start our investment programme for 2023-4.
