Housing Minister Caroline Flint announced details of proposed changes to the building control system, aimed at cracking down on illegal construction. The Future of Building Control consultation recommends a more efficient risk-based inspection process for local authorities, that focuses on the most dangerous failings. Good builders who comply with them will be relieved of the burden of unnecessary inspections, while cowboy builders will face tougher scrutiny. A more systematic approach to the review of building regulations will also give the industry more certainty and allow better forward planning. Proposals in the consultation include:
A new online tool-kit, developed by CABE and funded by the Housing Corporation, aims to help developers, housing associations and their design teams show planners and funding bodies how their proposed development meets the Building for Life standard - the national benchmark for well-designed housing and neighbourhoods.
The Housing Corporation, English Partnerships and an increasing number of local authorities now require new housing developments to fulfil between 12 and 16 of the 20 Building for Life criteria.
The new guidance is also designed to help funding bodies and planners assess whether proposed developments meet the Building for Life standard. It provides clear examples of the design-related material - diagrams, plans, visuals and models - clients can include in grant application tenders or design and access statements. It also explains how that material should be evaluated.
The new tool-kit is available to download for free from the Building for Life website at www.buildingforlife.org.
Information Notes
Building for Life is the national standard for well-designed housing and neighbourhoods. It is awarded to housebuilders and housing associations who demonstrate a commitment to high design standards, good place making and sustainable development. Building for Life is an initiative led by CABE and the Home Builders Federation.
CABE is the Government's advisor on architecture, urban design and public space. As a public body, it encourages policymakers to create places that work for people. It helps local planners apply national design policy and offer expert advice to developers and architects.
The Redruth hospital buildings are being transformed into modern live-work accommodation. English Partnerships' £595,000 Gap Funding investment will ensure the restoration of these two popular 18th-century hospitals and enable the Redruth Urban Village housing scheme to proceed. The unlocking of the second phase of the development will provide a total of 37 new homes, 10 of which will be available as affordable homes.
Devon and Cornwall Housing Association has already developed the first phase of the urban village housing scheme on an adjacent site. But progress on the next phase was being blocked by the costs associated with the derelict hospital buildings, and as local people wanted to retain these familiar and much-loved local assets, English Partnerships stepped in with extra funding to enable the conversion to go ahead.
The £3m Redruth Hospitals project is part of the first phase of the Redruth Urban Village, which is creating 64 new homes, 26 of which have been set aside for affordable housing.
The former Roussillon Barracks in Chichester has been ear marked for a new community following its sale to national regeneration agency English Partnerships by Defence Estates. The site will form part of a comprehensive regeneration programme of surplus government land along with the adjacent Graylingwell hospital site that is also being redeveloped.
Located close to the famous festival theatre to the north of Chichester, Roussillon Barracks was until recently the home of the Royal Military Police. The purchase of the site will now unlock surplus public sector land, of which up to 5ha has been earmarked for development to ease the obvious shortage of supply of affordable housing stock in the local area.
English Partnerships and Chichester District Council will now begin to draw up a detailed development brief for the site that will act as a design and sustainability blueprint for any future development partner to follow.
Roussillon Barracks sits adjacent to the former Graylingwell Hospital site, which English Partnerships is developing in partnership with house builders Galliford Try and Affinity Sutton. Graylingwell will provide some 800 homes, of which 40% will be affordable.
The developers will also renovate and preserve key existing former hospital buildings including a Grade II Listed farmhouse and a chapel dating from around 1890, along with retaining many of the existing landscapes and mature specimen trees.
A third residential plot at Greenwich Peninsula has been given detailed planning consent by the London Borough of Greenwich, .
The 305 homes that have received this latest consent will occupy a prominent plot on the 190 acre development site - London's largest regeneration scheme.
The 23 storey building, will be mixed use with three retail units on the ground floor and contain 305 apartments, 92 of which will be for affordable rent or available through shared ownership.
The building includes many innovative technologies and the latest advances in eco-building, such as a Biomass Boiler, as part of the CHP and District Heating system. Cycle storage and a Car Club are to be provided along with a car park, designed over two storeys which in turn creates the central landscaped amenity areas.
Work is expected to start on site later in the year.
English Partnerships selected Lovell to build an £11 million canalside housing scheme in Stoke-on-Trent, following a developer competition to find the best proposals for the site, which overlooks the Caldon Canal and forms part of the new City Waterside neighbourhood.
The scheme will provide 83 homes for open market sale and low cost home ownership. In addition, it will create eight homes for affordable rent and shared ownership through Beth Johnson Housing Association.
Lovell is using Fusion Building Systems' light steel frame technology to build the new homes. The system allows faster construction times than traditional construction methods and will ensure high levels of thermal efficiency for the new homes.
Construction work has started on a £36 million mixed tenure housing development which will create 136 new apartments at a brownfield site in Islington.
The Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association development will provide 91 flats for open market sale, 31 flats for affordable rent and 14 flats for New Build HomeBuy shared ownership.
The new housing replaces a number of light industrial units on the site, most of which have been empty for some time.
The development will incorporate environmentally-friendly features, including a biomass-fuelled boiler which will deliver 10% of its energy requirements.
A £13.5 million mixed tenure housing development, as part of the ongoing regeneration of the Beaumont Leys area in Leicester, was about to start. A total of 135 houses, apartments and bungalows will be built on land previously owned by Leicester City Council.
The new development will create 95 homes for open market sale, 24 for shared ownership and 16 for affordable rent - for housing and regeneration group Midland Heart.
The first new homes are set to be completed by November of this year with the overall scheme scheduled to be finished in May 2010.
Connaught Partnerships has passed the half way mark in its work to upgrade 2500 social houses in the Bridgend area.
As part of its contract with Valleys to Coast Housing, the Company has just completed work on the Wildmill Housing Estate and completed improvement work on its 1300th property.
Connaught Partnerships secured a £15 million contract to refurbish the Association's homes in 2004. The work includes the installation of new kitchens, bathrooms, electrical re-wiring and gas systems.
Valleys to Coast Housing was the first housing association in Wales to be established as a result of a large scale voluntary transfer by a local authority. Andrew Smith, Head of Asset and Procurement at the Association said:
"In addition to carrying out specific work to properties, we are working with Connaught to identify additional community benefits that will ensure local people continue to benefit long after the contract has been completed.
