Posted 03.03.16
The NHMF Maintenance Conference is an annual event, run by maintenance professionals, devoted to housing maintenance. This year the conference was held at the end of January.
The conference provides a framework for maintenance professionals within the social housing sector to exchange ideas, innovations and best practice tenets. It also offers a favourable environment for organisations to network and showcase their products and services.
While it is recognised that there is a great need to build more housing in the UK, the job of maintaining the existing stock is also one of paramount importance. This year's conference addressed the challenges and rewards inherent in this crucial task and focused on five key themes:
In plenary and workshop sessions, speakers selected for their expertise in a particular field, shared their knowledge and ideas about these themes.
in a session entitled "The housing conundrum", David Orr (CEO of the National Housing Federation) spoke about the current climate in social housing representing the end of a core model of business practice which had been in existence for 40 years. He challenged those in the sector to adapt to the changes and to find ways - with a particular emphasis on asset management - to continue to fulfil the vital mission of providing social housing to those who need it.
James Tickell (Director of Campbell Tickell) delivered a plenary talk with the title "Housing's new realities: can we maintain performance and satisfaction?" Addressing the current atmosphere in the social housing sector, he suggested that some of the ways for housing associations to survive and thrive in the future would include placing greater emphasis on compliance and asset management and applying greater sophistication in retrofit and maintenance.
Another very relevant and topical subject - the glaring lack of women in the construction trades, amidst a skill shortage in the industry - was addressed in a plenary talk. This is reported on separately in the March edition of InFocus.
In all, over two full days of the conference, the six plenary sessions and 20 workshops covered a broad spectrum of subjects, all relating to the key questions facing the social housing sector, as well as the multitude of opportunities that still exist and how to take advantage of them.
