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  • HPH351: Creating affordable, high quality, low carbon homes – with Linda Farrow

    HPH351: Creating affordable, high quality, low carbon homes – with Linda Farrow

    Linda Farrow from Agile Homes explains how their prefabricated panelised system can deliver high quality and truly affordable homes that are good for the planet.

    Interview with Linda Farrow

    Linda Farrow and her partner Craig White set up Agile Homes in 2019 to address the need for better housing in the UK. They aim to deliver low-cost homes without sacrificing on quality, and each of their buildings is low carbon, energy efficient and has the ability to be disassembled easily (at the end of its life cycle).

    Timber panels with straw in-fill are made off site

    Linda explains that at the core of an Agile Home is their Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) panelised system. These panels are prefabricated in a factory and then assembled quickly on site, giving you a watertight structure within a day or two. The use of natural materials like timber and straw ensures that the homes have an extremely low embodied carbon and the panelised nature of the system mean it can be easily customised to meet the client’s needs. This makes it incredibly versatile and can be used for a variety of projects, from a block of flats to a one bedroom bungalow.

    Their housing model aims to overcome common challenges

    Linda explains that as part of their mission to make good quality and affordable housing accessible in the UK, they needed to identify the current barriers in the construction industry and come up with creative solutions to overcome them.

    There is a cultural wariness of adopting renewable materials

    England has a romance with brick and block construction that is proving tricky to shift. Even our children’s stories have perpetuated this message by telling us that a house made out of brick will be sturdy whereas a house built from straw and sticks will leave us vulnerable to attack.

    This cultural mindset shift will take time to change but as more projects are completed it will keep demonstrating how well natural materials can work.

    There is a lack of affordable land to develop

    The price of land is currently a major barrier for affordable housing projects and often takes up a large proportion of the budget.

    By collaborating with councils, housing associations and charities, Agile Homes works to unlock land at low or no cost for social value. This can quickly reduce the delivery cost by around a third.

    It needs to be easier to finance and insure sustainable projects

    It can still be a challenge to finance or insure ecological projects because they are deemed higher risk.

    So Agile Homes has invested time in developing relationships with companies such as the Ecology Building Society and they are now an approved supplier.

    They also gained BOPAS (Build Off-site Property Assurance Scheme) accreditation which is recognised by mortgage lenders as providing the necessary assurance that properties that use modern methods of construction (MMC) will be readily mortgageable for a minimum of 60 years.

    Gaining planning consent is not always straightforward

    Getting planning permission for a project can be quite involved and take time, which is why Agile Homes have developed a modular solution called TAM which complies with the Caravan Act. This generally means planning permission will not be required because they are moveable rather than permanent structures.

    TAM (Transportable Accommodation Module) is a rapid response housing solution

    TAM is a prefabricated, rapid-response housing solution.

    The modules can be transported ‘flatpack’ to site and assembled quickly, leaving you with a watertight shell in a day or two and operational within a few weeks. Depending on the site and the needs of the client, TAM can also be umbilical to an existing building, using the same power, water and drainage systems without the need for planning permission.

    “We’re not quite there yet, but one of our aims is to make it as easy for individuals and community led organisations to buy into our system as if they were going to a car showroom, and they can sign the finance agreement and drive away in their car. So in the same vein, they could sign a finance agreement and have their TAM delivered to their site”

    Delivering a ‘turnkey’ solution helps to maintain quality

    The larger the development the more likely it is that different companies and sub-contractors will be delivering different aspects. Inevitably this can lead to mistakes or inconsistencies. So at Agile Homes, where possible, they like to control the whole process.

    “In essence it’s about control, and making sure that we can deliver the quality of product to the client. If you use a conventional procurement method where you’ve got the design and then you transfer over to a main contractor, the main contractor is incentivised to find all manner of ways to reduce their costs and increase their margin. And that’s not a criticism, that’s just the way the system is set up. We are a values led organisation and our board scrutinises everything that we do carefully. So I think it is about aligning everything that we do with our core value of respect for people and planet. It’s about control throughout the process to make sure that we can deliver to that time after time for our clients.”

    LILAC in Leeds

    Prefabrication can take place at a ‘pop-up’ factory

    The panelised system has been designed so that it can be put together with high end power tools. In certain circumstances – such as at the request of a community led project – they can bring the manufacturing closer to site and create a pop-up factory in empty barns or industrial units. This has the added benefit of upskilling communities who are interested in sustainable building.

    The Agile team

    The best collaborators have respect for people and planet

    “The ideal client would be someone whose values align with ours, so respect for people and planet, someone who has access to substantial amounts of patient capital, who is like us, genuinely interested in providing as many people as possible with homes that are affordable in perpetuity. Because having an affordable home, a safe civil space to be in is the foundation stone, in our view, for sustainable regenerative communities. And climate change is quite rapidly going to be a question of water and food crisis. So there are many, many immense challenges on the horizon for society. We want someone who, like us is very focused on helping society to put in place the foundation stone for us to then have the capacity to deal constructively with all the challenges that are yet to come.”

    Inter-governmental policy is needed to be able to deliver widespread affordable housing

    Linda explains that the biggest challenge for Agile Homes is access to patient capital and limitations caused by a lack of inter-governmental collaboration on housing policy.

    “Governments have a duty in between terms and outside of party political allegiances to look after human beings and the planet. There are some policies that should be negotiated and agreed as being inter governmental.”

    The natural materials contribute to a calm environment

    Agile Homes has carried out work for local authorities, housing associations and charities, and quite a lot of their residents are vulnerable. This can range from physical disabilities, mental health issues to learning disabilities. So some key feedback they have received is that the natural materials and quality design have created a calm atmosphere which can be of great comfort to anyone but particularly to those with special needs or mental health challenges.

    Agile Homes are committed to sustainability from their build system to their business model

    Linda explains that Agile Homes aims to create a business model for affordable housing by looking at a wide range of resources which promote sustainability and social value:

    The Agile Homes team is also in the process of finalising their Carbon and Social Value Tokens, which will allow people to offset their carbon emissions in local, sustainable, social developments.

    “We’ve been thinking a lot about how to we evidence and generate revenue from the carbon storage that we’re achieving in our buildings and also in the social value that we’re creating. So we’ve been doing work behind the scenes to build calculators and we’re just about to go live with what we call carbon and social value tokens that can potentially be traded. What that means is that we have found clients who are interested in actually buying and paying for the stored carbon and the generated social value as part of their ESG governance systems and processes. So rather than offsetting their carbon footprint by paying for X 1000 trees, in a plantation 1000s of miles away, they’re choosing to buy the carbon that we can evidence is being stored for a minimum 60 year design life in our buildings and I think that’s very exciting. We have plans to use that methodology to generate revenue that can then further reduce the costs of some of our schemes for our most vulnerable clients. We’re really excited about that extension to the model and that rethinking of how do we generate value and revenue in a truly regenerative economy?”

    Find out more

    Visit the website of Agile Homes

    Transcript

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  • HPH057 : Low Impact Living Affordable Community (LILAC) – with Joe Atkinson

    Joe Atkinson explains how the LILAC cohousing community came together and why their project is affordable for everyone.

    Joe-Atkinson

    Interview with Joe Atkinson

    Around 2005, Joe got quite interested in fuel depletion and climate change. At the time, Joe had a nice job in IT and was getting paid well but felt that his life wasn’t very  fulfilling. He was looking to get involved in something that would provide this fulfillment, and be in line with his ethics.

    Lilac-plot

    Eco-building Can be Really Simple

    Joe did a Masters in Architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, at Machynlleth which he found absolutely fascinating.  Being a bit of a techie, he really liked the technical side of the course and the physics behind how buildings work.  This got him really interested in eco-building and he feels that a lot of it is actually really simple and backed by common sense. Instead of constructing thermally leaky buildings, we should be building sensibly.

    Lilac-scaffolding

    How Joe Got Involved in LILAC

    Joe went to an event where some of the members of LILAC (it was previously known as Leeds Eco Village) had a stall and were trying to recruit new members. Joe was at a point in his life where he was looking for somewhere to live. LILAC appealed to him as it was community of people who were building eco-houses that he would be able to afford. It was a no-brainer for him from that perspective and he got involved.

    Being on the Board

    When Joe joined, the group was really keen to recruit people on to the board.  As Joe is the kind of person who commits totally to something new that he gets excited about, he decided to join the board.

    Being on the board meant taking legal and financial responsibility for the project collectively with the other board members. Once Joe joined, he found his own little niche as the person who is a good team-builder. The board at the time was populated by lots of people who were really dynamic and making stuff happen, and his supportive role on the board really helped things along and played to his strengths.

    Lilac-straw-panel

    Making Community Decisions

    The board needed to think about how the whole community functioned and to avoid a two tier decision making system between the board and non-board members of the community. To address this concern they had an away weekend where an external facilitator came in and they did a whole community visioning and strategic planning exercise. They discussed the whole community’s goals and looked at different options for how to get there.  Smaller task teams were set up to look at particular aspects of the project such as their relationship with the existing community, recruiting members, publicity and so on.

    Joe joined the group that was to liaise with the professional team- the quantity surveyor, the project manager and the main contractor.  The group went through a tender process to appoint a contractor.

    Lilac-crane-lifting-panel

    Developing a Relationship with Leeds City Council and the Existing Community

    The group had been in discussions with the Asset Management Team at Leeds City Council about various sites around the city and looked at two that were very suitable. It took the group a while to develop a relationship with the Council because when they first approached them, they probably came across as a bit of a rag-tag bunch of optimistic, well-meaning do-gooders who wanted to build some eco-topia.  It wasn’t until they came back to them with a project manager and a serious business plan that the Council started to really take them seriously as a credible group who they could sell the land to.

    They ended up choosing the site in Bramley, where they did a community consultation with the local residents. The community really liked the idea of what they were trying to do which gave the group a really good feeling about choosing that site.

    Lilac-Joe-on-site

    LILAC- (L)ow (I)mpact (L)iving, (A)ffordable, (C)ommunity

    LILAC is an acronym and stands for three main elements- Low Impact Living, Affordable and Community. The Low Impact Living element comprises of buildings built using the fabric first approach, an airtight construction with mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and the use of renewable materials such as timber, straw bale, lime render and lime plaster and triple-glazed windows. There is solar PV on the roof and solar thermal for the houses but not for the flats.  They have used the Passivhaus approach, and are not far off from it, but haven’t spent the extra money to get the accreditation. They also have fewer car parking spaces- there is half a car parking space per home and two secure bike parking spaces. They have also set up community agreements for lots of other different aspects like sub-letting agreements, the car policy and the installation of electric car charging points.

    Lilac-roof-going-on

    The LILAC Mutual Home Ownership Society

    Joe explains how the affordability model of LILAC is achieved through their legal and financial structure which is called The Mutual Home Ownership Society. It is essentially a housing co-operative and it uses a new financing model unique to Britain, as each member is effectively buying shares in LILAC Mutual Home Ownership Society Limited.

    The total project cost is divided proportionally between each of the twenty homes, with each home representing the notional build cost for each unit, e.g. where the four bedroom units are more expensive to build than the three, two and one bedroom units. The amount that people pay to live there is related to their earnings.  So all the members pay thirty five percent of their net income and the amount that relates to determines the exact size of their home size.

    Once the debt associated with your flat or house has been paid off, you drop down to just paying ten percent of your net income.  At that point you’re just paying a small amount as a service charge or ground rent.  If you had a normal leasehold, you’d always be paying a small amount for things like insurance and management fees, etc.

    The group is decoupling the value of the homes from the housing market, and that’s intended to keep these homes affordable in perpetuity.  So they will always have the same ratio to earnings. Living at LILAC isn’t about investing in property; it’s about creating affordable housing as a legacy of the project and about buying the service of a home.  It’s about homes as shelter, not as a nest egg or an investment.

    Lilac-buildings-up

    LILAC is about Creating Good Quality Affordable Housing

    According to Joe the process has worked so far and they are keen to support other groups who are interested in this model.  At LILAC, they are not creating social housing, but affordable good quality housing. Joe can’t imagine anywhere else where you can get to live in an eco-house with all this amazing community and it’s affordable and you get to own it. This is potentially a model for anyone who is excluded from home ownership for whatever reason.

    They have an active waiting list and they are receiving new applications all the time. This gives the current members an added level of security. If a member were to lose their job and couldn’t afford to live there anymore, there’s a whole process that takes place before they have to move out. And if at the end of that process they still have to move out, there is a waiting list of people that already want to buy your shares and move in.

    Membership by Consensus

    Everyone who lives at LILAC- apart from a couple of the very early founders – has had to apply to join. Because the group operates a consensus decision making model, everyone in LILAC has the right to veto someone applying.  When Joe’s partner moved in, she had to write an application too and there was a period when somebody could’ve voted against her moving in. She sailed through with flying colours, recounts Joe happily.

    Living in Cohousing Comes with its Own Challenges

    Joe feels that it has been quite interesting going through a process where you have to prove that you can afford to live at LILAC because the affordability model relies on everyone declaring their financial situation. Although they now have a finance task team who look at all the finances, previously applicants had to submit their application with their financial information to their future neighbours which could be quite uncomfortable.

    Living in an intensive cohousing community requires you to adapt and change the way you think. It can be really nice and sociable, but at times overwhelming.  One of the real strengths of the cohousing design is that you have got your own place and you can retreat to it if you need to.  But when you’re ready to come out, you’ve got a whole community there waiting.

    Everyone at LILAC has been very supportive and open minded and have a real willingness to learn about living in a community and to learn about themselves as well.  Living in cohousing challenges you in ways that you might not expect- it is a bit different to living in a traditional street in Britain. Joe admits that there have been a lot of challenges so far and there are likely to be more in the future, but they look forward to them.

    Find Out More

    LILAC’s website

    Transcript

    Download a transcript of the interview with Joe Atkinson.

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