Issue - meetings

The Service Manager – Housing Management and Home Ownership to present a report to the Cabinet Committee with regard to adopting a new approach to the Council House Building Programme – Phase 5.

(1)        That the Council adopts a new approach that involves early engagement with local community representatives;

(2)        That a new process for future CHBP site assessments based on a collaborative and incremental approach be agreed; and

(3)        That all future developments going forward be designed in line with the ‘Passivhaus’ standard – ‘Fabric First’ approach as a minimum and to accommodate future retrospective installations of Low Carbon Heat Generation and Heat Recovery Systems as and when suitable systems are identified.

Deborah Fenton, Service Manager, Housing Management and Home Ownership, presented a report to the Cabinet Committee, she advised that the Council House Building Programme (CHBP) had mostly been developed on former garage sites to date. A number of potential sites have been refused planning permission or been withdrawn, partly due to added limitedneighbourhood improvement and adding to some degree to local existing parking stress problems.  

Many of the previous garage sites that have been developed were of poor quality, unlit and attracted anti-social behaviour. Although the loss of the garage sites had been perceived by local residents as adding to parking stress in the local area, many of the garages were no longer suitable for parking cars because they were too small and mostly used for storage.  

A consultation and community planning process had been proposed to engage with local community representatives to openly discuss where potential development opportunities may exist and to better understand and potentially address local issues that may be required to possibly achieve positive support for further Council Housing development in an area.

Some CHBP developments provide more additional parking than was required and have been left unallocated.  However, being mainly small enclosed developments, it was believed that they would be better managed through EFDC licences to local residents allowing improved security and improved community cohesion.  This was proposed in a separate report and a new draft policy – Allocation of Surplus Car Parking Spaces Delivered through CHBP.

As a positive response to the Council’s Climate Emergency resolution it was proposed to design all future developments adopting the ‘Passivhaus’ standard – ‘Fabric First’ as a minimum. This would further improve the thermal standard of the properties reducing the future heating requirements for residents. Given the external wall thickness significantly increases from c300mm to c500mm would establish the base approach and thereby simplify the design process and avoid the need for redesign and potentially resubmitting for planning consent and assist the subsequent contractor to deliver the Design and Build contracts. This was anticipated to add c.3-5% to the current specification build cost. 

The adoption of a heat generation and recovery system i.e. an Air Source Heat Pump and Heat Recovery System (ASHP-HRS) would add a further c.6-8% to the current specification build cost. The technology to achieve this was available but there are varying views of its reliability and ease of user operation.

It was therefore beneficial to design all future properties going forward to accommodate ‘Passivhaus’ standard – ‘Fabric First’ and to also plan within the design for future retrospective installation of an ASHP-HRS as and when a suitable system was identified. 

A new process was proposed for selecting and developing sites for Council Housebuilding based on a collaborative approach involving EFDC colleagues, Essex County Council and community representatives. The purpose was to assess and develop the potential sites using an incremental approach to ensure successful planning applications, developments that improve local neighbourhoods and limiting resource input into sites which are not feasible or supportable  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15