Metropolitan Housing Trust London

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PROJECT NAME: Neighbourhood Investment Unit

PROJECT START DATE: 2004
PROJECT COMPLETION DATE: Ongoing, rolling programme

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Metropolitan Housing Trust London (MHT London) is a registered social landlord, which owns and manages over 18,000 homes in London. MHT London has a large property base in Haringey where, in 2004, we were faced with 600 hard-to-treat homes with very high reactive repairs costs. In response, it was decided to set up the Neighbourhood Investment Unit (NIU), a small regeneration team tasked with tackling these properties, carrying out a whole-house package of works that bring them well beyond the Decent Homes standard, retrofitting them to achieve typical carbon savings of 45%.

The programme decants the residents for a period of approximately 14 weeks, during which time the property undergoes significant works, including:

300mm Loft insulation
100mm floor insulation under suspended timber floors
Cavity wall insulation (where applicable)
60mm internal wall insulation
Double glazed windows (often double glazed timber sash windows due to conservation area restrictions)
Sound insulation between flats
Complete electrical rewiring
Necessary structural works
Complete central heating upgrade including A-rated condensing combi boiler, TRVs and roomstats
Low energy lighting
New carpet or laminate flooring
Water butts and garden improvements where appropriate
Resident-designed kitchen and bathroom replacement and complete redecoration in colours of residents’ choice

The programme has delivered over 300 of these refurbishments so far, with 62 in the last 18 months, typically achieving the following results:

SAP rating of 80
Primary energy use of 164 kWh/m² per year
Carbon emissions 2.3 tonnes per year

The team also involves a Resident Liaison Officer (RLO) who works with the residents and wider community throughout the process. The RLO works to ensure that the residents are involved in the project throughout, designing their kitchen and choosing the colours for redecoration. Due to the team’s close links with MHT’s Community Investment Team, residents have been helped back into work and families linked with programmes such as our Eat Well, Eat Wise healthy eating programme and our sport outreach initiatives.

To further combat the effects of fuel poverty, returning residents are provided with a guide to their new home and how to get the best out of it, through best use of the heating system and other key energy saving advice. The residents are welcomed home with an “eco-welcome pack” that includes a number of green and ethical products such as ecological washing products, fair trade tea and coffee, recycled binbags and spare low-energy bulbs.

The team has also been selected to take forward one of the TSB’s Retrofit for the Future projects, aiming to take the approach outlined above and expand on it to achieve even greater carbon savings, through a “Passivhaus” style approach to super-insulation and airtightness. It is intended that the lessons learned from that experience can be transferred to the main programme to look for cost efficient opportunities to deliver even greater carbon savings.

Having an in-house team including a Resident Liaison Officer and 2 Building Surveyors, overseen by the head of unit, ensures a consistency in service delivery and confidence in running a complex regeneration project. This is supported by working with a variety of contractors that has enabled us greater flexibility and an improvement in the effectiveness of the programming. As a result we are reaching more people and homes.

COST EFFICIENCY:

The programme is funded mainly through our own reserves, but topped up with grant funding where available (e.g. through CERT funding). The works, as listed above, are a combination of energy efficiency upgrades, Decent Homes Standard works and general property improvements. Early costs were typically £55k per home, but as the programme developed and identified efficiencies, this cost has been driven down to £43k per home, achieving the same results. The team are constantly working to drive down costs to do more for less, in partnership with the contractor, Apollo Property Services Group.

The approach also identifies the economies of “doing more in one go”. Our Decent Homes obligations require us to carry out significant works to the properties, but in having access to the property, it makes long-term business sense to carry out improvement works at the same time than to return to the property at another time. This approach also reduces inconvenience for the residents.

The government’s recent announcement of their Home Energy Management Strategy, and forthcoming Warm Homes Standard indicates that these sort of works will become mandatory for social housing providers. Indeed, the proposed minimum target SAP level of the Warm Homes Standard (70) is already exceeded through the typical package of works carried out by the NIU. By learning the lessons now and developing an efficient and economic delivery vehicle, MHT are well placed to deliver on our future obligations in the most cost effective ways.

HOW DOES THIS PROJECT DEMONSTRATE CO2 REDUCTION?

The works, as described above, deliver CO2 reductions through the primary route of energy efficiency. High levels of insulation (including floor and solid wall), efficient heating systems, double glazed windows and low energy lighting provide the most cost effective means of reducing CO2 and focus on getting the basics of building performance right.

The team have also looked for ways to integrate microgeneration technologies into their refurbishments and have experimented with photovoltaic panels at one project resulting in the resident enjoying a 50% saving on energy bills. With the introduction of the Feed In Tariff and other mechanisms to improve the cost effectiveness of microgeneration, the team will be exploring the feasibility of bringing such technologies into the wider programme.

CO2 savings are, for the most part, evidenced by the Energy Performance Certificate assessments that indicate the stated typical figures (SAP rating of 80; Primary energy use of 164 kWh/m2 per year; Carbon emissions 2.3 tonnes per year). By comparing these figures with existing stock condition information, the programme monitors and is able to report on the CO2 savings which, across the programme, amount to over 140 tonnes/year in the last 18 months.

HOW COULD THIS PROJECT BE REPLICATED BY OTHER LANDLORDS?

The basic template of the team and the programme is straightforward and replicable. With a team comprising of dedicated Building Surveyors responsible for the building contract, a Relationship Manager responsible for managing the Resident Liaison Officers (who support the residents throughout the process) and a head-of-department to coordinate the whole programme. The team’s links to other internal departments such as Community Investment and Asset Management are also widely-achievable by other landlords who usually have dedicated staff working in these fields.

Financing retrofit and “bridging the funding gap” is a challenge for all RSLs. However, in this case, by combining the works with an existing capital funded programme to drive improvements to the homes, with added grant (e.g. CERT) we believe we have found one way to address this challenge. Furthermore we have demonstrated with the scale of the programme how to drive down costs to levels that would enable us and other RSLs to deliver improvements that, whilst still expensive, are more economic in the long run.

HOW HAVE RESIDENTS BEEN INVOLVED?

As stated above, the team recruits dedicated Resident Liaison Officers, managed by a Relationship Manager, who work with the residents throughout each refurbishment. Beyond being the first point of contact and keeping the residents updated on the progress of the programme throughout, the RLOs seek to provide wider support for residents in engaging with community activities (such as sports and healthy eating programmes) and in finding employment.

The residents are also consulted by the Building Surveyor on a number of design choices for their refurbished home, including design elements for the kitchen and bathroom as well as choosing flooring and decorations. The NIU process aims to keep the resident at the heart of the process and ensuring that they feel happy at home when they move back in.

This approach to refurbishment of properties, involving the decanting of resident into temporary accommodation, requires significant inconvenience for the household. It is crucial that expectations about the timescales, the scope of works and service expectations are well managed from the outset. Through experience we are now better able to manage the varied expectations of residents; this includes a new resident refurbishment guide, customer charter and an amended customer satisfaction survey to improve feedback and customisation of the service.

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