Reuse to Reinvent
JDA's Bill Jennings attended Place North West Sustainability in Practice: Retrofit. The event's focus was on reusing and transforming existing buildings and here's what Bill discovered;
Held at Manchester Hall, the event featured expert panellists, retro-fit presentations and networking. It covered a broad range of topics including the practical challenges of working towards net zero carbon standards, funding for the decarbonisation of housing, skills shortage and training needs.
Sustainable Housing
The Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) is insufficient to cover the considerable work required to upgrade homes across the UK.
Bronwen Rapley, chief executive of Onward Homes, highlighted the challenges her company faces in this respect. Contrastingly, she did suggest that the bigger picture of overall estate development was more positive.
The impact of more sustainable redevelopment on homes has been positive. Residents report having warmer, quieter homes and living in improved environments.
Will the new Labour government find more funding to support extended strategies for sustainable housing? Pre-election, The National Housing Federation (NHF) called on the Labour Party to introduce long-term funding for retrofitting and decarbonisation.
In his presentation, Ian Scott, group managing director of Livingway, explained the benefits of refurbishing existing city centre buildings for the rental market. With the cost of developing new builds prohibitively expensive, refurbishment offers a viable alternative while encouraging better use of existing buildings.
This event reinforced the critical message that retrofitting and refurbishment should be central to a nationwide sustainable housing policy.
Skills and Scalability
It’s no secret that there’s a skills shortage in the built environment. This impacts the construction industry in general and specialist areas such as engineering.
If the UK is going to tackle decarbonisation and sustainable housing at scale and meet Government targets, it needs an industry capable of delivering these goals. At the Place North West event, there was widespread agreement on the chronic shortage of skilled retrofitting workers.
Joe Crolla of Greater Manchester Combined Authority reckoned on there being as many as 85,000 skilled construction workers across Greater Manchester but they all needed upskilling or more training.
He referred to the recent boom in solar installations and how this had brought in new businesses and skilled workers. But he also talked about the end of solar subsidies and the impact this was now having on this same area of activity.
Currently, under Andy Burnham’s mayorship, there’s been a focus on public transport infrastructure. However, this will need to shift more towards sustainability, training and education – young people should start learning new skills when they’re still in school.
Greater Manchester continues to grow, but this growth depends on an assured supply of skills, products and materials. The region’s property sector must become significantly more sustainable within tight timescales.
At JDA Architects, we’re prioritising retrofitting. We recognise its critical importance to decarbonisation and for creating sustainable housing in the long term. Under the JDA Sustain banner, we offer expert retrofitting assessments, design and coordination. We support the entire retrofitting process, from grant applications to design and implementation.
