HBF Technical Conference 2022

Housebuilders “need to appreciate the race they are in” when it comes to securing electricity for their sites, Chris Doré, TriConnex’s business development director, said today (September 20).

Speaking at the Home Builders Federation’s Technical Conference in Birmingham, Doré told delegates that, in a far cry from when housebuilders were the “biggest show in town” when securing power for their developments, other industries which by nature were able to move faster with site acquisitions, could claim substantial amounts of energy capacity in a shorter space of time. 

“In less than nine months, an HV electric vehicle charging hub can take the [electrical] capacity of 300 homes,” Doré said. “One bus garage can take the capacity of 1,000 homes.”

Other sectors seeking electrical capacity for their buildings and infrastructure, including data centres, were “well-funded and can make decisions quickly. You [housebuilders] are not going to spend money unless you can buy the land,” Doré stated.

He strongly recommended housebuilders create and maintain a live view of the grid status of the whole of their pipelines.

Also speaking at the conference, Phillip Dixon, principal of Ofwat, gave an overview of the organisation’s recent price review consultation for 2024 which also covered nutrient neutrality. The consultation referred to Natural England’s position that investment driven by the need for wider environmental improvements could not be used for mitigation.

Dixon acknowledged that some respondents to the consultation had questioned whether this stance was consistent with DEFRA’s advice on neutrality measures, namely water companies being instructed to upgrade their wastewater treatment works by 2030. “We don’t think we’ve interpreted this differently,” Dixon says. “We think we are being consistent with DEFRA but this is such a moving thing.”

Speaking in the afternoon, Andrew Walker, director of PwC and Brian Lochead, Barratt’s director of its building safety unit, detailed their work towards the government’s building safety pledge, data collection on fire safety works and remediation plans.

Lochead said the dedicated unit the volume housebuilder had established to address fire safety “has given us focus and consistency”. He added that “Barratt has always been very clear; the cladding issue needed to be resolved properly and on a timely basis. Leaseholders should not pay. We should remediate where we need to.”

With stakeholder engagement on the matter, “I will always value openness and transparency but we will have to look at this case by case – the noise around the situation and how to manage it.”

Steve Evans, NHBC’s head of technical operations, looked at the industry’s upcoming changes and challenges, including recent new Building Regulations and the Building Safety Act. He cautioned that the latter would affect all housebuilders – not just those building above 11 metres – as it was a “whole building regime change”.

“There is so much going on,” he said. “Covid didn’t do us any favours. Every department was diverted to deal with Covid. Now the floodgates have opened.”

Please contact events@house-builder.co.uk if you have any questions.