News

The Local Authority Delivery Scheme, part of the Government’s Green Homes Grant initiative, is driving energy efficiency upgrades for thousands of low-income, low-EPC homes across the country, providing local authorities with up to £500m to help bring residents out of fuel poverty, while moving the country towards its net zero target.

Quality, capacity, speed of delivery and value for money are all considerations for local authorities that have been awarded funding under the scheme, therefore it’s vital that they get procurement right first time. For those that do not already have contractors in place, a framework agreement and a Direct Award process can ensure all of these are met.

A new guide has been launched for local authorities, housing associations and other registered providers that are looking to procure energy efficiency works.

As the Government and wider housing sector seek to ramp up their retrofit efforts to achieve net zero stock by at least 2050, it’s more important than ever for social landlords to ensure they have routes to procure compliant and quality suppliers.

Which should take priority – new build or retrofit? It’s much easier in some ways for social housing teams to argue for investment in new build as a way of achieving decarbonisation targets, as at least the likely costs are broadly understood. But what about the tenants who are crying out for more affordable warmth and the other benefits of low carbon retrofit – in rural areas of the North in particular, this is a major strategic priority. And nationally there’s no doubt that the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock is a bigger, more pressing problem to tackle.

Gary Cawley, director of CPC, offers advice on how to weigh up the options, based on the funding streams currently available and the experience of social housing clients in the North working with CPC to meet their decarbonisation goals.

CPC & the Northern Housing Consortium are pleased to announce our support for the North East of England Climate Coalition (NEECCo) which has today (Tuesday 30th March 2021) officially launched our collective ambition for the North East region of “Becoming England’s Greenest region”.

NEECCo is England’s first regional cross-sector climate coalition and we are calling for every individual, household, business and organisation to sign up and make a pledge to do their bit via their website 

With a quick PR picture on the stairs of 11 Downing Street and an hour-long speech in the Commons, Rishi Sunak delivered his much-anticipated Covid-recovery budget.

This was going to be the Big One. The budget that laid out the path to economic recovery for the UK, that would leave us encouraged that everything really is going to be alright in the end.

Ok, budgets are never that simple, but we could all do with a bit of positivity. So, despite the threat of probable tax hikes, we all had our fingers crossed for announcements about how we were really going to ‘build back better’.

Creating attractive, inspiring workspaces with Modern Methods of Construction through our MB1 Framework

CPC helped to pair Middlesbrough Council with modular building specialists M-AR for this attractive, town centre creative hub.

Boho 8 is the latest phase of Middlesbrough’s Boho campus, the commercial quarter for the town’s digital media, digital technology and creative sectors.

In the run up to COP26 at the end of this year, a raft of Building Regulations changes, updated energy standards and other policies are driving us further and faster than ever before towards the UK’s net zero carbon targets. Some of the discussions are getting very technical and very complex. Some of the demands that will be made on the development of new homes in the North are also not yet well understood.

In order to help development directors plot their strategy to net zero, Gary Cawley, director of CPC, sets out the essentials that every social housing client needs to know today and the first steps that CPC clients find most useful.

There is a growing body of experience of MMC in the social housing sector now, with a number of Registered Providers in the North having conducted pilot projects, large and small. LHC has worked on hundreds of projects for social landlords all around the UK, totalling more than 5,300 homes to date.

However, it’s hard to escape the unspoken political pressure to present success and ensure the MMC story is a wholly positive one. So are we at risk of missing out on the detailed learning about mistakes?  Registered Providers want to know what worked well, but also what the MMC pioneers would not do again, so they can avoid the same problems.

LHC is currently in the pre-planning stage of their New Build Housing Construction (H2) framework that will be procured on behalf of SPA, CPC and LHC.

It will deliver a range of traditional housing as well as low, medium and high-rise construction, sheltered, student and keyworker accommodation, care homes, and mixed use sites, development agreements and land purchases.

Public sector procurement specialist CPC has published the Contract Award Notice for its Energy Efficiency Measures & Associated Works (N8) Framework Agreement.

The Framework allows local authorities, social landlords and other public sector bodies to source specialist suppliers who can provide a variety of carbon-reduction  measures for domestic and public buildings and can carry out any associated repairs and retrofit work.