English Partnerships
has announced details today of the Design
for Manufacture Competition along with the first four sites which will be
used to pilot the construction of sustainable, well-designed, good quality homes
for around £60,000.
The competition is being run by national regeneration agency English Partnerships
on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Organisations and consortia are being invited to bid for the right to construct
on one or more new developments on sites owned by English Partnerships and other
public sector partners.
Around 470 homes will be built on the initial pilot sites which are located
at Oxley Park, Milton Keynes; Oxford Road, Aylesbury; Upton, Northampton and
Allerton Bywater Millennium Community, near Leeds. An additional list of sites
will be announced at a later stage.
Trevor Beattie, English Partnerships’ Director of Corporate Strategy, said;
“This competition will stimulate fresh thinking in the way we construct our
homes and demonstrate how we can build more cost effectively without sacrificing
quality.” He continues, “Construction costs have continued to rise above the
rate of inflation at a time when we need to be building more homes for our money,
not less. By using public sector land to provide the sites, developers will
be able to focus all their efforts on achieving cost efficiencies and increasing
design quality. Once we have established how these efficiencies can be made
we expect them to be adopted across the whole supply chain.”
A minimum of 30 per cent of the homes will be constructed for a target cost
of £60,000. The remainder will comprise larger and smaller units which will
be built using equivalent processes and cost efficiencies. The figure of £60,000
is a target construction cost only, not a development cost or sale price. The
competition will be open to all types of building methods, suppliers and materials.
Development briefs or design codes where applicable will be provided against
which shortlisted bidders will be expected to respond with their proposals.
As a minimum all homes must follow the principles of the Urban Design Compendium
published by English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation in 2000 and achieve
the BREEAM Eco Homes standard of ‘very good’ or equivalent. The initial pilot
sites are mainly in the South East growth areas and are part of larger schemes
where infrastructure is already in place. Each competition site will include
a range of housing types and tenures. An OJEU notice inviting expressions of
interest from organisations and consortia in the next few weeks is published
today. Initial entries will be judged by a Technical Advisory Group of professional
consultants and English Partnerships representatives who will draw up a shortlist
of bidders. The shortlisted organisations will be invited to bid for part or
a whole development site later this year. Final entries will be chosen by an
independent judging panel alongside community representatives from each of the
sites. The final recommendations will be put to Ministers for approval.
As part of the process, English Partnerships will also be seeking opportunities
for public participation and debate. It is expected that work on the first homes
will start in the first half of 2006.
A copy of the OJEU notice and a briefing pack are available from www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/designformanufacture
or for further information