US visitors to Orbit Heart of England sustainable developments

Published by FrancesHS for Orbit Heart of England in Housing and also in Communities

Orbit Heart of England played host to American visitors from the Housing Partnership Network (HPN) last week.

The HPN is a group of leading affordable housing and community development organisations. The aim of their visit was to learn about the various sustainable projects and developments that Orbit Heart of England is working on.

Orbit Heart of England is a pioneer in the field of environmentally sustainable affordable housing and refurbishing traditional properties. The group was taken on a tour of some of Orbit Heart of England’s developments, including the Glebe Road and Mount Crescent housing development in Stratford-upon-Avon where 38 former post World War II properties have been replaced by 57 new energy efficient homes boasting a range of sustainable design features, such as solar panels and high levels of insulation.

They also visited Elliot Drive, in Wellesbourne, where two 1940s properties have been refurbished – one to meet the high energy performing Passivhaus EnerPHit refurbishment standard; the other to provide a more cost effective solution, both to be considered as the preferred roll out option across the housing estate. The visit ended at Sampson Close, Coventry, Orbit Heart of England’s £2.8 million new build Passivhaus development.

The Passivhaus standard is the world leading standard for energy efficiency in buildings, making homes eco friendly and helping to keep customers’ energy bills low. These include highly insulated walls, floor and roof, triple-glazed windows and an airtight membrane wrapped around the inside of the house.

As John Barnham, Head of Sustainable Investment at Orbit Heart of England explained, “With the Government’s Green Deal due to come into force this autumn, our projects will provide the ideal opportunity to improve our understanding of low energy, low carbon design and installation techniques.

“For us, energy efficient housing is critical to tackling fuel poverty and providing an ‘affordable’ housing legacy; we have made great inroads to these effects in recent years. This is something that our American visitors are extremely interested in and it was an ideal opportunity to share knowledge and ideas with each other.”

Mathew Ladd, Vice President of Housing Partnership Network confirmed the visit “… as a great success and provided the wider networking opportunity for shared discussion on climate change, impact upon social housing and solutions, irrespective of country of origin and local climate.”