The Homes and Place Standard marks our commitment to building and maintaining good quality homes and better places to live. While we have always striven for high standards in our developments, this new approach will underpin how we invest in our homes and how we build new homes.
We are proud that we're leading the way on setting the very highest standards for affordable homes and great places to live. As we make this commitment, we hope others will follow.
Watch the video below to find out about the Homes and Place Standard.
Transcript [00:05] Offscreen, Reporter: These new homes are about as eco-friendly as they come. Zero carbon, net zero energy, and surrounded by plenty of outdoor space. Nine of the 25 plots here belong to Sovereign, their vision is not only to provide affordable homes, but to build good quality, well designed homes like this in sustainable communities. They've set out those principles in a new assessment tool, the homes in place standard.
[00:34] Speaker: Tom Titherington, Chief Investment and Development Officer: What we've done is spent 12 months developing our Homes and Place Standard. And that means looking at everything external, all the standards that there are - everything to do with carbon neutrality and biodiversity, but also means working, co creating the standard with colleagues from across the organisation and with residents. And I think that really sets it apart in the sense that what we've done is something which comes out of the organisation and out of the organisation's experience, but brings in all the current thinking about what we should be doing to make homes which are fit for the future.
[01:12] Offscreen, Reporter: The 60,000 homes sovereign already own will be assessed against the new standard over the next 30 years. But it won't be a tick box approach.
[01:21] Speaker: Nicole Sharp, Executive Director of Property services: What we'll do is look at the home and the place that it's situated in and through a range of different lenses look to see whether, on the whole, does this home and the place that it's in meet the standard and aspiration that we have. So in some areas, some homes will in other areas, some homes won't. But it's about the broader sense around the vision that we're trying to create, which fundamentally comes back to safety, quality and is it affordable - is it warm for our customers to live in? The premise is about learning as we go along, making sure that we leverage the technologies and the new materials to make sure that our homes meet that standard.
[02:03] Offscreen, Reporter: The materials used in this development provide the highest levels of thermal protection. They're designed and built by Greencore, who say sustainability is achievable on a large scale.
[02:16] Speaker: Ian Pritchett, Managing Director, Greencore Construction: The more bio-based materials you put in a house, the more carbon you capture. And if you design the house appropriately, you can balance out all the carbon capture of the bio-based materials with the emissions from the high energy materials like the concrete, the steel, the glass, and it just becomes a balancing act to lock up as much carbon as you emit and get to zero carbon.
[02:38] Offscreen, Reporter: At this much bigger development. Next in Newbury Racecourse, 500 new homes belong to Sovereign. It's a unique and popular place to live in a vibrant community. That's what attracted shared ownership customer, Ricardo Salvador, who's looking forward to moving in.
[02:55] Speaker: Ricardo Salvador, New Resident: The whole area is a really good area. We're not a fan of racehorses myself. But I do like the greenery around the parks, or the area for the kids to walk and run and it’s not too far from Newbury town centre, but it's not too close either, so it's kind of a perfect distance.
[03:13] Speaker, Carolyn Sim, Reporter: The commitments Sovereign are making is huge - applying their standard to all of their homes. And the big aim is to become net zero in terms of carbon emissions by 2050. So, over the next 30 years sovereign will begin a major multimillion pound program of renewal while building 1900 new homes a year.
[03:37] Speaker: Tom Titherington, Chief Investment and Development Officer: If we can provide really good homes in really good places, it's kind of better for the economy, and it's better for the people that live there.
Watch the video below to find out about our Homes and Place journey.
00:04.2 – 00:12.9 At Sovereign we believe that everyone should live in a home and a place where they feel safe, part of their community and where they can thrive.
00:13.9 - 00:22.2 Our homes and play standard is the quality Benchmark for a Sovereign home an underpins our development and investment strategy.
00:21.1 – 00:38.1 It's a big step on our journey to making all our homes great places to live. Homes that enhance the environment and promote sustainable living. The Standard aligns with national planning policy and will support our partnerships with local authorities and provides a pathway to achieving NetZero.
00:37.1 – 00.45.0 The Standard is made up of four key areas: Customers Homes Place and Sustainable Future.
00:46.6 – 01:03.0 Our customers’ experience of their homes and places is our priority. We take pride in safe and affordable communities that are healthy inclusive and full of delight for everyone. We’ll achieve this by making sure that our homes are comfortable and cost-effective for our customers.
01:04.1 - 01:17.8 New homes will be carefully designed to be flexible and adaptable into the future, complementing and enhancing their local community and environment. Our places will be inclusive providing different kinds of homes where people feel safe.
01:19.1 - 01:32.4 They'll connect with and complement the existing built environment and promote sustainable design. And we take a sustainable approach to the delivery and running of homes. So they'll be energy efficient with a low environmental impact.
01:33.3 – 02:00.3 We’ll score existing homes and new development opportunities against the Standard and it will inform our investment or replacement strategy for our existing homes in this way. We'll create homes and communities that support customers health and wellbeing making it easy for them to get on with their lives in a home that's warm comfortable secure and affordable to run that also reduces their impact on the environment in sustainable communities.
Around 40% of the carbon emissions leading to global warming come from people’s homes*.
Heating, hot water, lighting and household appliances all use energy – as well as the energy used in the materials and construction of homes. Most of this still comes from burning fossil fuels, which release damaging emissions into the atmosphere.
To improve homes for our customers and support the UK’s efforts to become net zero for carbon emissions, we’ve committed to all our properties meeting an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of C or above by 2035 and being net zero by 2050.
Through our Homes and Place Standard we're now building ‘greener’ new homes which are net-zero ready and we're embarking on an ambitious programme to make sure that our existing homes are more energy-efficient and affordable, and that they support the health and wellbeing of customers.
Our Strategic Asset Management strategy sets out how we’ll achieve this for existing homes. One significant element will be retrofitting homes - installing lower energy heating systems and other measures to improve comfort levels for customers and reduce energy bills to help tackle fuel poverty. In March 2023 we were delighted to be awarded over £9m by the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) towards our £22.5m improvement strategy - helping 1,000 more homes over the next two years.
Where we can't improve homes in this way we may also look to sell some of them: reinvesting in those which we can improve. And we will look to regenerate some homes where there are opportunities to bring wider benefits to an area as well.
*Source: https://worldgbc.org/advancing-net-zero/embodied-carbon/
Watch the animation below to find out more about our approach to Strategic Asset Management
00:02.3 - 00:14.8 At Sovereign we believe the quality of a home affects every aspect of a person's life. And to deliver on our mission all our homes must be high quality.
00:16.2 - 00:29.3 We've never stopped building, regenerating and replacing homes. And as we look to the next 30 years, we will build nearly 2,000 homes a year and raise the standards in every single home we own.
00:30.7 - 00:45.2 We'll measure the quality of our existing homes, using our Homes and Place Standard. The assessment and re-evaluation of our stock is an ongoing process building new homes and investing in or replacing homes that no longer meet our high standards.
00:47.1 - 01:23.8 Some of our homes meet our standard, both rental and shared ownership. Some homes will need some investment to bring them up to standard and others will need a bit more investment. But given the age of some of our stock we need to make tough decisions about whether some of our properties can be regenerated. Or whether replacing them will deliver better long-term quality for our customers. Where reinvestment isn't cost effective. We'll sell some of our empty homes to invest in our existing homes and to build new ones. And there will be others that will be completely rebuilt.
01:24.6 - 01:30.9 And of course, all the while, our normal development programme will bring on new rental and shared ownership homes.
01:32.3 - 01:44.0 It's a plan that is bigger in scope and vision and impact than any we have delivered before, and we'll keep talking with our customers at every step on the journey. So they understand what it means for them.
01:44.9 - 01:56.7 Our plan will ensure that by 2050 every home will be built to last adaptable, enjoyable to live in, sustainable and carbon neutral