Our work for housing associations has always been one of the mainstays of the practice and we have worked with most of the leading housing associations in the Eastern Region. The majority of the projects are inner urban brownfield sites for developments of between 5 and 25 houses and each involves issues such as overlooking, limited access, established rights of way and, where the sites are garage sites, car parking displacement.

Our experience in dealing with each of these issues has established our reputation for delivery and honed our skills for public involvement and negotiations with Local Planning Authorities.

Whereas the majority of our affordable housing appointments are for individual sites we have also been involved in comprehensive housing programmes spread over multiple sites within towns or cities and advised on the strategic development of estate portfolios for housing associations.

Our housing association clients require many varied types of housing including special needs, homes for later living and lifetime homes. We have built examples of each of these house types.

In addition to housing associations, many Councils are now assuming responsibility for housing provision and we have recently been appointed direct by a number of Local Authorities to help deliver their programmes.

As affordable housing is retained by the client, ease of maintenance and low running costs are important factors in housing design. Sustainability is also an important factor.

Sustainability

We have a long-established involvement with sustainable housing. In response to government initiatives in the early 2,000’s we developed a pilot scheme in association with the University of East Anglia which studied 4 separate methods of providing supplementary passive energy. The results of this study have informed the design of our later energy-conscious housing schemes.  Subsequently we completed schemes which were accredited for Code for Sustainable Homes (CfSH) levels 3 to 6 including the first commercially available Code 6 housing in the country.

CfSH has now been superseded by other means by which energy efficiency can be demonstrated and we have continued to develop our expertise in this technology.  We can now offer a comprehensive energy assessment of all our buildings including Passivhaus-accredited design.