Keith Simpson
Keith Simpson on an elegant way to address two major issues: NEETS and housing supply.
Fifteen months ago I was on the point of retiring from the housing sector after a 45-year career – latterly as business development director of social housing consultancy Just Housing.
But then I realised my work and contacts touched two different problems that might share a solution: our society has around one million young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) without the chance of obtaining a “real job”, and our current shambolic house building industry is failing to deliver the houses we need.
So the Building Better Lives project is the result of 15 months learning about government housing policy, funding mechanisms, the state of house building, FE colleges, training agencies, apprenticeships and thereby gaining an understanding of the current operating environment.
Volume house builders cannot and will not build the 240,000 houses required each year because they do not have either the resources or materials (42 weeks delivery for bricks) and they have no desire to flood the market and see prices and profits fall.
The industry is losing 48,000 trades operatives each year through retirement etc. and replacing them with 7,400 not-fit-for-purpose “apprentices”, hence our sites are full of eastern European labour. At the same time, schools are providing poor careers advice, and FE colleges that offer “diplomas” in construction trades are in the main simply putting bums on seats, spending the countless millions thrown at them by government and training young people for jobs that don’t exist. Finally, there are no legitimate training courses in sustainable and modern methods of construction. Amazing…
Building Better Lives (www.buildingbetterlives.co.uk) is therefore designed to teach young people to build Code 5/6 energy efficient housing and thereby create a new resource of “construction engineers” who will not only understand how to build a house correctly but understand why it has to be done in a disciplined and controlled manner.
Having researched the marketplace for MMC and off-site manufacturers, we concluded that by far the best system to achieve all our objectives was the Beattiepassive Build System, which allows the sections to be built either on or off site with minimal set up costs.
"Building Better Lives is designed to teach young people to build Code 5/6 energy efficient housing and thereby create a new resource of ‘construction engineers’."
The uniqueness of this system is that it is driven by a disciplined process that, provided it is followed, guarantees the energy efficiency and performance of the house and all for the same price as the current code 3 houses that leak energy like a sieve.
The system can be used to build houses, bungalows or apartments of any shape or size and by using BIM, the trainees can see what they are building and examine every detail, to learn exactly how the dwelling must be constructed in order for it to pass the four independent surveys for soundness, air tightness, thermal efficiency and structural stability, carried out on every house built. Because of this rigorous build process, not one Beattiepassive house has failed to meet the required criteria which we believe sets a new benchmark for housing quality in this country. (www.beattiepassive.com)
The trainees can be engaged in the manufacturing process within a week and then gravitate onto site shortly afterwards under the wing of a mentoring trade operative to be taught how to erect the air tight box which is the unique feature of the system. The system can be clad in a brick skin, thermally efficient render, timber or any feature panels to achieve the requirements of the local planners.
By working with local authorities and housing associations to create regional house building programmes, we can not only improve the quality of housing but create three to five-year programmes to provide the continuity of work required to give the necessary skills to trainees to equip them with a job for life. We are currently creating housing consortia in the north west, north east, south west, Shropshire and Wales and individual pilot projects with another 12 housing providers.
Meanwhile, our “Breaking the cycle” initiative with the Prison Service is designed to teach offenders how to build the Beattiepassive parts in prison workshops and bring them out on day release as the near their discharge date, onto local BBL-run construction sites near the prisons. We are currently in discussions with Springhill open prison In Aylesbury and Littlehey Prison and Young Offenders’ Institute near Huntingdon. We have also visited Oslo to meet the head of the Norwegian Prison Service, Marianne Volen, and her officials, who lead the best prisoner rehabilitation service in the world. Meanwhile, in this country 70% of prisoners re-offending at a cost to the public purse of £40,000 per year in prison, plus the cost of the judicial and probation services.
Building Better Lives is therefore developing a programme of activity that could result in the creation of a parallel house building industry where local authorities and housing associations take back control of their land to build good quality social housing with unemployed local people, ensuring that every pound spent, remains in the local community to achieve the 100,000 extra new homes required in excess of the current build programme.
Keith Simpson is the co-founder of Building Better Lives. He will be attending the CIOB’s Inspiring the Future of Construction conference on 24 November http://inspiring.ciob.org
