The UK is facing the twin challenges of the housing crisis and climate change. VELUX has responded by developing a concept called Living Places, which promotes: low-carbon, sustainable and high-density urban living and working with partners to deliver an exemplary project in Sunderland. The city’s leadership has an ambition to be the first net zero city in the UK, and we wanted to support this.
When we started the discussions, we quickly saw that there was a strong alignment in our principles. We have since joined as a team with Sunderland City Council, Igloo Regeneration (the developer), MawsonKerr Architects and other partners and are now finalizing the details of a development of around 40 to 50 mixed owner homes in the city centre. The site is a reclaimed brownfield plot, opposite the Town Hall, and is part of a larger development of 1,000 homes.
We then met HICSA (Home Construction Skills and Innovation Academy), part of Sunderland College, which is based in the city and aims to train 800 school leavers, apprentices and adults a year who want to upgrade, return to or join the construction sector. HICSA is working with partners to deliver parts of the curriculum, and there are strong synergies between our goal of developing an exemplary sustainable neighborhood and the goal of training future builders and construction workers who will build and possibly live in those homes in their community. We have installed a VELUX Training Academy within HICSA and will deliver courses to their students and also train their staff to run the courses themselves.
VELUX is keen to scale this model to other colleges. There are nine additional construction skills academies across the country and we are developing a curriculum that can be fed into the national framework, meaning we can support delivery at scale. It is estimated that another 48,000 skilled workers will be required in the construction sector to provide the homes we need in the future. We also need a skilled workforce for the refurbishment market, with the expertise to improve the large stock of older homes we have, whether that involves replacing boilers, installing insulation or upgrading windows.
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There’s no point in having ambitions to build more homes and to do so more sustainably if you don’t have partners who can help make it happen. We recognize that colleges need support from both business and the private sector. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the organizations providing this training and explore what we can achieve together, understanding their ambitions and how we can support them.
Living Places Sunderland’s vision is to demonstrate that developers, councils and housing associations can build more sustainable, healthier homes at scale, homes that people really want to live in and enjoy. These homes are healthier, better for residents and affordable to build.
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