Built to Last? Delivering Sustainable Housing for Hampshire

Ashburton Hall Conference Room, Queen Elizabeth II Court, The Castle, Winchester was an appropriate venue for this conference, given that the recently completed refurbishment and construction of the site highlighted many innovative sustainable features. Around 120 representatives from Planning Departments, Architects, Builders, Designers, and Construction Companies on both large and small scale, together with many more industry sector representatives gathered for this e arly evening conference.

The aims of the conference were two-fold

  1. Move forward with the debate on Sustainability in the Built Environment, focusing on housing.
  2. Promote a shared understanding between the local public and private sectors of the challenges we face in this debate

Hampshire County Council Deputy Leader, Councillor Roy Perry welcomed Planning Committee members, and heads of planning departments from across the county to a pre conference reception, which provided opportunities for the planners to meet with members of the construction and built environment sector to facilitate discussion and understanding.

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The conference boasted, in Mr Tim Bentall a director of BDO, a neutral Chair to keep the evening flowing smoothly. Speakers included

  • Steve Clow,  the Chief Architect at Hampshire County Council responsible for the refurbishment of Queen Elizabeth II Court, which utilises many sustainable features throughout.
  • Rachel Mitchell, a Code for Sustainable Homes and Eco-homes assessor. Rachel specialises in construction energy advice and training to optimise building performance and meet higher standards.  More recently she has been working on Passivhaus design and assessment and is also a registered NHER SAP assessor and OCDEA.  Rachel worked for 15 years managing and maintaining social housing at a senior level before moving into sustainable building design.
  • Clare Sutton, who developed an interest in the sustainability aspects of architecture during her degree and diploma at Bath and Portsmouth Universities respectively.  Following the Diploma she studied part time for her masters in Architecture and the Environment whilst working for Kenn Scaddan Associates
  • Paul Ciniglio, who is employed as Sustainability and Innovation Manager for the Radian Group. The primary focus of his role is to reduce the environmental impact of the housing associations activities.
  • Dr. Luke Myer, who is a Research Fellow in the Sustainable Energy Research Group (SERG) at the University of Southampton.
  • Dennis Seal, who has over 37 years experience in construction as developer, contractor, consultant and client, and has a commercial and project management background combined with business development skills.

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Delegates received a free, sustainably sourced, memory stick, which included the presentations, a free copy of the Code Energy Matrix (worth £100) and a link to the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Conference organisers were delighted to be able to provide an opportunity to view the refurbishments at the Queen Elizabeth II Court building and review its sustainable features at the end of the conference.

Follow up event

As a further step towards fulfilling the aims of the event HEP and SCN have also been able to arrange a trip to the Innovation Park at the Building Research Establishment in Watford. The trip is scheduled for Friday 27th November. Coaches will depart from Intech at 09:30 and should arrive on site at around 11.30. Lunch will be provided and this will be followed by tours around the park to view sustainable housing including one building currently under construction. Booking for this event will be via the HEP website.