You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Sector must attract ‘new and different players’ to drive innovation, says Homes England boss
The housing sector must attract “new and different players” in order to drive innovation, the boss of Homes England has said.
Nick Walkley told the Chartered Institute of Housing’s International Housing Summit that the sector should be looking to attract players that “challenge our delivery models, do things in a different way and take different sets of risks.”
The comments came in answer to a question about what “housing innovation” looks like to Homes England, the government’s housing delivery agency.
READ MORE
In response, Mr Walkley said: “First of all, kind of counterintuitively, housing innovation looks like doing what we say we’re going to do metronomically and better than we do it at the moment.
“Turning out sustainable affordable homes in great communities shouldn’t count for innovation – it’s the entry level.
“When you look at the really innovative organisations, what they’re really good at is their core business and they do it obsessively, quietly and without expectations of praise or thanks.
“My agency and the sector as a whole has just got to do more of that and do it repeatedly. The horror of building safety tells us how far we’ve got to go.”
Last year, Homes England struck a multimillion-pound deal with Japan’s biggest builder, Sekisui House, to build thousands of modular homes across the country.
The deal saw Sekisui House and Homes England invest in Urban Splash’s new ‘House’ development business, which will focus on the delivery of modular homes. The investment included £22m of new equity from Sekisui House, £35m from Urban Splash, and £30m of equity and debt funding from Homes England.
Mr Walkley said doing this will “create the space” to attract new players to the sector and added “that’s where the innovation will come from”.
During the same interview, the Homes England boss said he did not think the housing sector “really understands the impact all of its commentary has on how it’s viewed”.
He said: “If it wants to make the case for social housing, it needs to make it clearly and effectively and make the business case for it…
“There’s an awful lot of us sharing a view about this is the right thing to do, but it’s still an argument that’s got to be won every single day of the week.”
