Housing 2025: A Round Up from the UK’s Flagship Social Housing Event.
From 24th – 26th June, the Sava team could be seen out and about in Manchester attending Housing 2025, one of the UK’s biggest events in the housing calendar. Sava’s Development Director, Andy Flook was in attendance and has taken some time to reflect on the event, commenting that it has “left us with a wealth of insights, offering a pragmatic look at the sector’s current state and future aspirations.”
Here’s Andy’s Housing 2025 round up:
Navigating the Funding Landscape
A significant point of discussion revolved around the government’s recent spending review. Overall, the sector appears broadly happy with the outcomes, which are seen as keeping things rolling. Key financial commitments include:
- £13.9 billion awarded for a 10-year affordable homes programme, which is encouraging.
- A 10-year rent settlement allowing annual rent increases by CPI plus 1%.
- An additional £10 billion for financial investment to support the journey towards net zero
- A recommitment of £13.2 billion to the Warm Homes Fund for upgrading homes, a crucial aspect driving retrofit efforts.
These investments are vital for generating income and leveraging finance, as the sector is unlikely to have the coffers to fully fund the net zero transition from existing capital or rental yield. However, there is still nervousness about whether there is enough money to really cover it.
The Net Zero Challenge: Vision and Reality
The overarching goal of reaching net zero by 2050 remains a formidable challenge. Many sessions reiterated the desire for “safer, warmer, affordable, energy-efficient” homes. However, there’s an overwhelming sense in reality that right now the sector cannot afford to hit net zero by 2050. It feels impossible. But that’s why it’s so important to have this future vision and to start to work towards it. It’s about accepting that costs might exceed current budgets but recognising that’s not necessarily a reason dispel that vision – it’s great guiding star. For example, it’s taken time to get here but we’ve seen a reduction in solar panel costs and, in time, the same could happen for technologies like air source heat pumps as they become more widely adopted and potentially become the new gas boiler equivalent.
Real-Time Performance Monitoring
A particularly interesting space to explore at the event was the Internet of Things (IoT). From a Sava perspective, as we create intelligent energy systems for asset management, IoT offers a revolutionary way to understand property performance.
- Moving Beyond Snapshots: Current asset management systems provide a snapshot, albeit regularly updated. IoT, however, provides live analysis, giving the real data on how a property is performing.
- Pre- and Post-Retrofit Monitoring: Implementing IoT solutions (sensors like room thermostats) even eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks prior to a big retrofit, allows monitoring of property and resident behaviour before any work is done. This enables checking if installed measures, such as heat pumps, are truly delivering expected energy performance and carbon efficiency.
- Ensuring Safety in Sealed Homes: A critical concern with highly insulated, sealed properties is the potential for damp or mould due to reduced air circulation, especially with lower temperature heating systems like air source heat pumps. IoT solutions can continuously monitor these conditions, providing long-term confidence in the safety and security of those properties.
While the cost of IoT solutions, ranging from £100 to £500 per property, is a consideration, their value in providing accurate data to design better future retrofits is immense.
Addressing Skills, Damp, and Quality Assurance
The event also highlighted critical human elements in the retrofit journey:
- Damp and Mould Concerns: This issue was front and centre. Modern low-temperature heating and well-sealed properties, unlike more forgiving historical technologies, can increase the risk of damp and mould.
- Education and Skills Gaps: A key question raised was whether professionals visiting properties possess the skills to see this stuff, understand what good and what bad looks like, and know how to act upon identifying issues. We’ve seen a significant increase in demand for training modules on damp and condensation, which only underscores this concern.
- Rise of RICS Surveyors: For the first time at this show, there was a noticeable presence of RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) based surveyors, indicating a shift towards commissioning higher-level surveys. Organisations are finding the additional expenditure is worthwhile because of the additional level of confidence and perceived competence that comes from working with an RICS member.
The Efficiency of Merged Strategies
A recurring and prevalent theme throughout Housing 2025 was the merger of capital works investment strategies with net zero strategies. And there are some significant financial benefits. The difference between running parallel schemes and running one, rich scheme can be enormous. I’m talking multimillion pounds worth of enormous. This integrated approach avoids incremental, less efficient projects and is seen as a major step towards making the net zero journey more affordable. I would strongly encourage organisations to discuss this with their asset management system providers.
A Call for Action and Practicality from Housing 2025
Despite the frustrations with the same old buzzwords and a lack of true opinion from some governmental figures, the event underscored the sector’s desire for concrete next steps. The longer-term funding commitments offer a little bit of confidence in committing to recruitment in the right areas, additional skills, and additional projects, for our retrofit perspective from which we can learn.
Finally, procurement was emphasised as more critical than ever, with a specific focus on ensuring rich data capture in electronic form from any service entering a resident’s home. It’s certainly better to have it and not need it than to want it and not have it.
While the merchandise is pretty vulgar and often gets chucked away, the true value of events like Housing 2025 lies in the conference sessions and networking. It’s about gleaning insights, sharing case studies, and engaging in open conversations that help the sector feel a little bit less lonely in its significant undertaking.
To discover how Sava is supporting housing providers, visit:
– Sava Intelligent Energy to find out more about our leading energy and carbon calculation software. Our software empowers more than 220 providers to make better, data-led decisions.
– Sava Skills Builder+ to learn more about our stackable qualifications designed to enhance technical skills and knowledge for social housing professionals. We help you build your technical expertise one module at a time, and gain an industry recognised qualification.
– Analytics and Strategic Support to understand how our team of housing and energy experts can take your objectives and assist you in making the right decisions to deliver the best outcomes across your property portfolio.