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Building Back With Communities

So much has changed since early 2020, and yet so much remains the same. We still have a housing shortage and a need to rapidly expand the supply of new homes, particularly in the affordable and social housing sectors.

The pandemic continues to change the way we live and work. We can’t fully know how deep and long-lasting lifestyle changes will be but it certainly makes sense to reassess what we want from new housing developments. In many respects, placemaking and building communities have become even more relevant.

To what extent will changing working practices affect the nature of the communities we build in the coming years? Is access to a coworking space becoming as important as access to transport infrastructure? What do people really want from their surroundings and locality?

These are important questions for councils planning to exercise new freedoms to invest the proceeds of Right To Buy sales.

Health and Wellbeing

Recent experiences heightened awareness of health and wellbeing and the harmful effects of social isolation. Expansion of housing is about more than building homes. We need to be thinking much more about creating places where people can live, work, socialise and belong.

The value of local shops and cafes in supporting local communities was underlined during the pandemic. The people who will occupy new homes deserve easy access to these facilities along with open and recreational spaces where they can exercise and feel closer to nature.

Accessible to All

A community is accessible to all, with sustainable transport that is protected from traffic. And with obstacle-free paths with good surfaces that can be used by wheelchairs, pushchairs and people with reduced mobility or sensory impairment.

Design on a Human Scale

Despite the scale of house building needed we don’t want people to feel lost in what we build. Designing on a human scale is an important aspect of community building, as are good architecture and materials that are attractive and, where relevant, reflect the heritage of an area.

Zero Carbon Considerations

The future of UK housing is a zero carbon one. It must be an absolute priority that the homes we build – whether for the private or social housing sectors – must meet high standards of thermal insulation and achieve low energy performance. These are not homes that we should be retrofitting in a few years to bring them up to the required standard.

Bringing People Together

Our society has become more fragmented. Housing design and community building are a powerful option to help bring us back together. If we want to level-up, enhance social mobility and ensure that the key workers so vital to a functioning society have decent and affordable homes, few levers are as effective as mixed tenure housing.

Thanks to modern construction methods, building high quality, energy efficient and attractive homes can be achieved cost-effectively and at scale. The challenge is how we use that capability to shape new communities that will be a positive force for good.

Access our resource centre to discover more about Osborne’s approach to social, affordable and mixed tenure housing.

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