The Bellsmyre area is undergoing significant investment brought by the Caledonia Housing Association
About the project
For the last three years, Caledonia Housing Association have struggled to upgrade 34 post-war British Steel properties in the Bellsmyre area. Rising costs, the extent of work, insufficient funding available and multi-tenure ownership have resulted in complications that have led to the project being shelved.
Built in 1951, following the Second World War, these 34 three-bed semi-detached properties are one of 34,000 non-traditional British Iron and Steel Federation (BISF) houses, made from a steel frame over two levels, comprising a solid ground floor and tiled roof.
The nature of the construction means that typically these properties have a low energy performance rating, making them much harder to heat, incurring higher heating bills, poor airtightness and ventilation.
Now, the Bellsmyre area is undergoing significant investment brought by the Housing Association, with the delivery of 200 new energy-efficient homes for the local area, featuring a mix of 1 and 2 bed cottage flats and 2, 3 and 4 bed homes. Replacing 264 flats in a state of disrepair and a major eyesore for the community. These new homes have completely transformed the area making it a vibrant community to live in. Most of the properties will house those tenants decanted from their existing homes and those affected by future demolition phases.
The solution
To improve the energy performance of the homes, the Association mapped out a full retrofit programme, which included cavity wall and loft insulation, thermal energy storage, electrical rewire, central heating upgrades, new windows and doors and installation of solar PV panels.
Procured using the SPA N9 framework that supports public sector organisations with an end-to-end solution to address retrofit and decarbonisation requirements for homes and buildings.
N9 is our largest framework to date. It combines consultants for grant funding identification, modelling and surveying properties, as well as a wide range of measures, including cavity wall insulation, heat pump and solar PV installation, alongside the management systems for monitoring energy performance.
The Housing Association appointed Sureserve via a direct award. Using the SPA framework offered Caledonia a quick and effective route to market. As the project has been in planning for 3 years, it was important for Caledonia that work started imminently, especially due to the timeframe that tenants have been waiting for work to be started.
Most of the properties are occupied, two properties were vacant, requiring significant work to restore them to habitable use. For the occupied properties, tenants had to be decanted to temporary accommodation to allow the required works to be conducted therefore Sureseve acted swiftly and coordinated this succinctly with tenants individually and the Association.