A sustainable housing developer has signed an agreement with Bristol City Council to deliver new homes based on a model created for the authority’s involvement in the UN Climate Smart Cities challenge.
EDAROTH (an acronym for Everyone Deserves a Roof Over Their Head), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of AtkinsRéalis, has agreed to design and deliver 29 social homes for Bristol, in a mix of 13 houses and 16 apartments.
The properties will be constructed using off-site manufacturing methods to create low energy-use, net zero homes – intended to provide additional capacity for the housing market and directly tackle the housing crisis.
Subject to planning approvals, they will be developed at six sites across Bristol on under-used council-owned land , including brownfield sites that is often overlooked by large-scale housing developers, but can be adapted or repurposed to unlock new space for communities.
Councillor Tom Renhard, Bristol council’s cabinet member for housing delivery and homelessness, said: “We are thrilled that our collaboration with the UN Habitat for the Climate Smart Cities Challenge is set to deliver 29 social rent zero carbon council homes.
“This development of much needed affordable homes will add to the 12,500 new homes already completed in the city between 2016 and 2023. The new homes will help people in housing need, adding to the 474 new affordable homes built in Bristol in 2021/22.
“This wider collaboration is not just about the great homes that will be built, but it is helping us unlock small parcels of under-utilised council land that have often been considered too complex or expensive to develop for council housing.
“We remain ambitious to see even more affordable housing built in our city and this new approach to unlock these small brownfield sites will help us do that whilst also protecting our vital green spaces.”
Central to the development agreement are the sustainable construction methods that are used by EDAROTH. These include:
- The majority of the building parts are manufactured in a UK factory before being transported and assembled on-site
- The carbon impact of the development process is reduced and also ensures the homes will be delivered more quickly compared with traditional methods of construction
- There is minimal disruption to residents living near the development sites as a result
- The new homes will be built to EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) A+, the highest efficiency rating possible to keep energy usage and carbon emissions low
The agreement is based on an award-winning approach developed by the city council, and the One City team, with partners including the Housing Festival, AtkinsRéalis, and EDAROTH, as one of four winning projects in the UN Habitat Climate Smart Cities Challenge in 2022.
Part of the challenge involved the creation of a demonstrator scheme that could prove how aggregating small sites for development, and overcoming systemic barriers, could unlock previously unviable sites to deliver truly affordable social housing.
The new approach identifies small parcels of land for development such as brownfield or under-used garage sites, within existing residential areas, which is more effective in creating social value and cohesion as it enables those existing communities to thrive.
Mark Powell, managing director at EDAROTH , said: “Entering into a development agreement with Bristol City Council underlines their position as a forward-thinking local authority which places value in sustainable housing and infrastructure.
“Bristol, in common with the rest of the country, faces a huge demand for affordable homes. This scheme is one part of the solution which not only supports the ambition to meet that demand, but also aims to enhance communities by transforming under-used sites to create thriving places to live.
“The agreement is a really important step in this project which demonstrates the city council’s confidence in the proposals we’ve put forward and their determination to deliver low carbon, low-energy-use homes for the community.”
Winning team
Zoe Metcalfe, client director for Connected Thriving Places, AtkinsRéalis, who led on the competition application process for the company, said: “Winning the UN Smart Cities Challenge as the Bristol Thriving Places team enabled us to explore viable sites for development and devise this approach around them.
“The wisdom of the EDAROTH development team has been instrumental in translating theory into reality. The Housing Festival boldly led the systems-led change to disrupt the evaluation model to deliver social value with Bristol City Council facilitating innovation. An exemplar of the power of collective action through trusted partnerships.
“It really shows how the principle of aggregating and clustering sites in this way can help to unlock value and achieve the economies of scale that are central to the offsite manufacturing approach which EDAROTH delivers, and we’re thrilled that Bristol City Council has chosen to turn those potential benefits into a reality through this new development agreement.”
A public engagement process has been launched, with information packs and questionnaires issued to residents near to the development sites to provide feedback.
The Climate Smart Cities Challenge is a city-based open innovation competition led by UN-Habitat, Viable Cities, and other partners, that invited technologists, businesses, and investors to develop, test and scale cutting-edge solutions in four cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Bristol was among the cities to win a bid to host this competition in 2020. Bristol Housing Festival, Bristol City Office and Bristol City Council designed the challenge for innovators around Bristol’s key pain point, the structural deficit in housing arising from multiple crises: 18,000 people on the social housing waiting list, over 1,000 families in temporary accommodation leading to a £10m+ annual subsidy loss, and the climate and ecological emergencies, all of which is now exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.
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