Annual Review 2021
Focused on building communities and place
Annual Review 2021
Contents
1.
CEO's Message
10. Joint Ventures
2.
Financial Overview
11. Working with Local Authorities
3.
Health, Safety and Environment
12. Partnerships
4.
Customer, Quality, Design and Awards
13. Placemaking
5.
Area of Operation
14. Regeneration
6.
Development Portfolio
15. Land
7.
Supporting Communities
16. Tackling Homelessness
8.
Environmental, Social and Governance
17. Supply Chain
9.
Team Hill
Mosaics, Oxford
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Annual Review 2021
1. CEO's Message
Growing together
Andy Hill Group Chief Executive MCIOB
I am delighted to present our annual report for 2021, which was a record year of financial performance in almost every respect. Alongside this, 2021 was a year in which we made major investments in several areas to position us for continued sustainable growth and ensure that we achieve our vision: The Hill Way:
“To be the UK’s leading, most trusted housebuilder, creating exceptional homes and sustainable communities.”
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The Gade, Hemel Hempstead
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Annual Review 2021
1. CEO's Message Cont. Regenerating London We continue to invest in regeneration projects, such as Douglas Bader Park, where we have been granted planning permission for 753 new homes.
At the start of 2020, prior to the pandemic, we set ourselves an ambitious five year vision to double the size of the business by 2025 and grow headline turnover to £1.2bn. The excellent performance of Team Hill in 2021, delivering over 2,300 homes and achieving record revenue of £753m and profit before tax of £65.1m, has set us well on our way to achieving our aims. Performance has been strong in our core business of bringing to market high quality, mixed-tenure housing as a private developer, as a joint venture partner, or as a partner to various residential providers, and this enabled us to finish the year with net cash of £163m. I am extremely proud of what our people across the business have achieved this year. Our strong balance sheet of £273m is now a major strength and, allied with the independence of Hill as a privately owned and family operated company, leaves us with a market leading and truly differentiated proposition. Without the burden of external shareholders, we are able to move at our desired pace in all our decision making, with the long term always in mind. This agility has made us a highly effective
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and respected organisation with which to do business within the market for land and in joint venture partnerships. This year, our approach has been to bid for, and deliver, more extensive, ambitious projects, particularly widescale estate regeneration schemes, that we forecast will drive our projected growth. Our development pipeline now consists of 3,300 homes with planning consent, around 5,000 awaiting planning, and a further 6,000 within our future delivery plans. We are making good progress in our move into the south west, our new region formally established under the stewardship of Andy Fancy. Our first project is well underway, with more coming through the pipeline over the next 18 months.
Leading Regeneration Andy Fancy is Managing Director of our Special Projects division, overseeing the development of major regeneration projects in London and Bristol.
We continue to invest in our core markets in London, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. In London, we recently achieved planning permission for more than 750 new homes at Douglas Bader Park in Barnet in joint venture with Home Group. We will also shortly submit our masterplan for the Teviot Estate in Tower Hamlets, where we are working with our joint venture partner Poplar HARCA. As part of this scheme, we have pledged to deliver £258m of social value, which will be independently audited by HACT. In Cambridge, we received consent to start a further five developments as part of the Cambridge Investment Partnership, and obtained planning consent for 421 homes at Phase 2 of Marleigh, our exciting partnership with The Marshall Group of Cambridge.
Vision For Oxford An artist’s impression of the new homes at Oxford North.
Following our success at Mosaics in Oxford, we are now working with Thomas White Oxford, the development company of St John’s College, as their selected development partner for the first phase residential parcel at Oxford North. The development will become Oxford’s new innovation district and will feature new laboratories and workspaces for biomedical science, new homes, public parks, hotel, nursery, small shops, cafés, restaurants and bars. We have recently submitted proposals for 317 homes.
Breaking New Ground A start on site celebration marked the first phase of new homes at Oxford North, the city’s new innovation district.
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Annual Review 2021
1. CEO's Message Cont.
I am also excited that we have been selected by the Royal Borough of Greenwich to deliver the regeneration of the Woolwich Leisure Centre Scheme, which will include over 482 new homes for the area. Similarly, we were chosen by Richmond Housing Partnership as partner in the regeneration of Ham Close, a landmark regeneration project in Ham, South West London. After extensive consultation we look forward to receiving detailed consents to our plans, which put the local community, green spaces and sustainability at the heart of each project. Whilst our pipeline has grown, we have the financial and operational capacity to do much more to reach our full potential. As a business focused on the long term, we have made investments in our resources ahead of time and will continue to do so. In 2021 we completed the refinancing of our group banking facility via a Sustainability-Linked Loan (SLL) valued at £220m, the first sustainable corporate loan facility to a housebuilder. This
Environment In 2022 we launched our first formal report into the company’s Environmental and Social value performance as well as our updated Governance structures.
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Ham Close, London
demonstrates the confidence that leading banks have in our future business model and our reputation as one of the UK’s leading sustainable housebuilders. Looking ahead, it gives us additional capital on top of our exceptional cash position, ensuring we can remain agile in expanding our pipeline even further over the years ahead. We continue to invest in Team Hill. The number of employees increased again in 2021, to 730. As part of this, we bolstered our leadership with a number of key senior appointments and a record number of trainees completed our management training programme. More than 25% of our employees are either trainees or graduates of the programme, many of them now in senior management and director roles, like Michael Turner, who was appointed Regional Director, London at the end of 2021, having joined our management training scheme in 2004. At the heart of our strategy is a firm commitment to strong Environmental, Social and Governance principles. We recently published our inaugural ESG report, which sets out our aims and key performance indicators around ESG and demonstrates our commitment to transparency in reporting against our objectives. The COP 26 summit in Glasgow in November 2021 brought into sharp focus the role we all have to play in addressing climate change and I am proud of
the forward steps Hill took in the past year. In particular, we have committed to leaving a positive environmental legacy by achieving biodiversity net gain (BNG) across our portfolio of land from 2021 onwards. And, looking to the future, our ESG strategy sets out our roadmap for achieving net-zero carbon in our Scope 1 and 2 business operations by 2030, and net-zero operational carbon in the homes we build by 2030, 20 years ahead of the UK’s broad 2050 target. As well as setting high benchmarks on sustainability internally, in 2021 we again took part in NextGeneration’s sustainability benchmarking of the UK’s top 25 homebuilders. We were delighted to move up from ninth to sixth position in the table, with the 2021 report describing our performance as “particularly impressive” given our private housebuilder status. Indeed, we were once again the highest placed privately owned business in the UK.
Customer service remains a major focus. It is a great testament to our customer service, delivery and sales teams that we retained our 5-star status in the Home Builders Federation’s annual customer satisfaction survey. This confirms our 5-star status for the fifth consecutive year and, having recorded 94.3% satisfaction, we sit very close to the top of the sector. As ever, in 2021, we prioritised safety in our methods of construction. With the threat of COVID still present throughout 2021, our on-site sales teams worked tirelessly to ensure potential customers could view properties safely. Our site teams did an amazing job in keeping the workforce safe, with an AIR of 1.4% below the industry average.
Infrastructure Works As appointed infrastructure contractor, we started enabling works for Oxford North’s whole masterplan.
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Annual Review 2021
1. CEO's Message Cont.
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Knights Park, Cambridge
SoloHaus On Show Our SoloHaus modular home was displayed to the public at two prominent exhibitions in London and the Midlands.
In 2021 we made progress with our Foundation 200 programme, where we have applied our experience and connections in housebuilding to help tackle homelessness. We have pledged £15 million to gift 200 units for homeless people over five years. We were proud to hand over 33 SoloHaus homes to Haringey Council and a further 12 in Cambridge. Our SoloHaus modular home was showcased at London Build Expo at Olympia in November and the Offsite Expo at the Coventry Building Society Arena in September, where it was crowned Winner of Winners at the 2021 Offsite Awards. Hill has a 50% share in a joint venture company, Volumetric Modular, which produces modular homes in two factories in the West Midlands. We are now exploring the modular housing concept further with different configurations and layouts. We are also working with many local authorities to extend the delivery of SoloHaus to help those in need. Once again, we were pleased to be recognised with a number of industry awards during the year, including Best Medium Housebuilder at the Housebuilder Awards. We also won Best Home, Best Sustainable Development and Best Medium Housebuilder (Silver) at the WhatHouse? Awards. Of note this year was our 2021 Housing Design Award for the sustainable Knights Park development in Cambridge, in conjunction with Building with Nature. As I reflect on 2021, there are several issues impacting the sector. The planning system is as clogged up as it has ever been, with resource deficiencies and political pressures blighting the system. Whilst the sector has voiced concerns regarding planning for what seems an eternity, there is a real risk of a drop-off in delivery if the current situation isn’t resolved.
The shrinking skilled workforce remains a concern for the sector although, at Hill, we are investing heavily in our apprenticeship scheme, including taking on many additional apprenticeships across our operational regions. Despite this, there are good reasons to be positive and fundamentally, I am resolute in my belief that we will keep on being successful while we continue to deliver high quality sustainable homes underpinned by great customer service. We are well capitalised, have the substantial operational capacity to do more, and will remain agile and flexible in our approach. Finally, and most importantly, looking back on our outstanding performance in 2021, I am once again thankful to Team Hill for their talent, dedication, and expertise. The past year challenged us to put a structure in place for the business to achieve our ambitious growth plans whilst still working through the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic. The results detailed in this financial report speak for themselves and I congratulate every one of our staff for their achievements.
The fire safety crisis continues and we recently signed the Governments new safety pledge and welcome their commitment to adopt a more proportionate approach going forward. We have made all necessary financial provisions and have dedicated resource to work with building owners to rectify the works.
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Annual Review 2021
2. Financial Overview
£753m
revenue
£65.1m
pre-tax profit
£273m
balance sheet
Neil Williams FCA Group Finance Director
2021 was a record year for Hill. Not only did we top £753m Group revenues for the first time in our 22 year history, profits were also at their highest ever level at £65.1m, up 48% from last year. With a balance sheet now totalling over £273m, including net cash of £163m, and a new £220m bank facility taking us through to the end of 2026, we are in an exceptional position to grow the business in line with our business plan aspirations and beyond.
2021 Trading Performance Having traded well through the uncertainties of last year, a degree of normality returned in 2021 despite having to navigate our way through various lockdowns and restrictions. Notwithstanding this, the business has delivered a record set of results, with revenue, profit, net assets and cash at their highest levels ever. We completed 2,318 new homes during the year, of which 1,212 were delivered from our private sales and joint venture activities. A further 28 modular homes were gifted in 2021 under the Group’s £15m Foundation 200 pledge, launched in 2019 to mark the Group’s 20th anniversary, as part of a £3m donation made in the year, bringing the total donated to date to nearly £4.9m. We know that it is more important than ever that our supply chain are paid on time in these challenging economic times. I am pleased to confirm our payment period has improved for the
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2,318 new homes,
1,212 delivered from our private sales and joint venture activities
£3m
£250m
donated in respect of the Group's £15m Foundation 200 pledge
in land bank which represents over
2020
2021
15%
8,300
22%
6,000
revenue increase
increase in net assets from previous year
third consecutive year, down from an average of 32 days per invoice to just 30 days at the end of 2021.
Balance Sheet and Funding Reinvesting almost all profits back into the business every year has seen the balance sheet go from strength to strength, providing a strong base from which to deliver our five year business plan. At the end of 2021, net assets had increased to £273m, up 22% on the previous year. Key to the strength of our balance sheet is an exceptionally strong net cash position of £163m at the year end, up from £138m the previous year. A strong balance sheet helps us win larger, more complex work, whilst providing a thriving
homes, generating £2.9bn of future income, with another
expected to be delivered from other opportunities
environment for our staff to grow and develop as the business expands. In December 2021 the Group refinanced its development funding facility with four high street banks for another five years, at the same time increasing it from £200m to £220m. This new facility was the first Sustainability Linked Loan in our sector, meaning the cost of borrowing is directly linked to our sustainability credentials and results, which is an essential step in our vision of becoming a leading sustainable housebuilder in the UK. Whilst we have not yet drawn against the facility this, combined with our strong cash position, will allow us to invest in large-scale developments and help deliver our long-term business plan targets.
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Annual Review 2021
2. Financial Overview
Cont.
Profit (before tax)
Revenue
48% increase on previous year
15% increase on previous year £800m
£753m
£700m £600m
£652m
£70m
£65.1m
£60m
£582m
£50m
£500m
£42.6m
£44.3m
£40m
£400m £30m
£300m
£20m
£200m
£10m
£100m
£0m
£0m 2019
2020
2019
2021
2021
Net Cash
Net Assets
18% increase on previous year
22% increase on previous year £300m
2020
£273m
£180m
£168m
£160m £250m £200m
£224m
£138m
£140m
£196m
£120m £100m
£150m
£80m £60m
£100m
£40m
£50m
£20m £0m
£0m 2019
14
£60m
2020
2021
2019
2020
2021
Net Cash of
£
£
£163m Supply chain payment times reduced to average of
30 days
5 year
Our land bank is of critical importance, as this is what delivers all our longer-term development profits. At the end of the year the Group’s land bank had a value of £250m, comprising over 3,300 homes with full planning consent, with another 5,000 in the planning process, all of which is expected to generate £2.9bn of future income to the Group. Furthermore we are also working on another 6,000 homes, expected to be delivered from other opportunities currently being explored, under our long-term control.
Growth and Ambitions Hill has always operated with a current five year business plan, to give clear direction and focus to the business. The most recent business plan was updated due to COVID in late 2020, and now runs through to 2025. Working alongside a long-term business plan has, without a doubt, been key in taking the business from a start-up in 1999 to the second largest family-owned housebuilder in the UK in just 22 years. Our latest business plan shows both revenue and profit broadly doubling over the next five years, to around £1.2bn and £110m respectively, with an increasingly large part of the business being development led. With our strong balance sheet with agreed funding already in place, expansion into new areas such as the south west and, most importantly, the dedication and commitment of all our staff, there is no reason why we shouldn’t deliver our business plan and more. 2021 has been a great year. As always, thank you to everyone who has helped us deliver our best results yet.
£220m
Sustainability linked RCF with four high street banks
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Annual Review 2021
3. Health, Safety and Environment
Health and safety in everything we do
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The View From The Crane At Aylesbury Estate
As a people-centred business, health, safety, and the environment are our foremost concerns in everything we do, in our offices, on our construction sites, and in the homes we build. Since the company’s inception, we’ve committed to delivering developments of exemplary quality whilst taking care of the environment and maintaining the highest standards of safety. We continue to perform strongly when benchmarked against the House Builders Federation’s (HBF) safety league table.
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Annual Review 2021
3. Health, Safety and Environment Cont.
Business HSE Review Health and safety has always been the first agenda item at our Board meetings, firmly established as our foremost concern within the business. Last year we commissioned an independent report from one of the most experienced consultants in the sector to confirm that our H&S arrangements are suitable for a company that has grown exponentially over recent years. The review aimed to provide a high-level review of our H&S management systems, reporting processes and incident response. The detailed review was combined with an assessment of our organisational and leadership culture towards health and safety. Based on a series of site visits and thorough one-to-one interviews with senior members of our leadership team and other direct and indirect representatives, we have produced an action plan for the calibration of our systems and processes, helping to secure future performance across the business.
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The report goes on to say “The desire and commitment from the business, project and functional teams to H&S management and performance is palpable and encouraging. There is no doubt that, at all levels, there is a desire and a commitment to get H&S right.” “The internal H&S team have played, and continue to do so, a significant role in owning and driving compliance, improving standards, and enhancing overall performance for H&S.” “The family and board members have clear ownership and commitment to ensure that people do not come to any harm whilst working for, with or affected by (for example the public) Hill Group activities.”
8.3 million hours worked
3,714 average number of operatives and staff daily
AAIR (All Accident Incident Rate) (Hill 152 – 2020) (Hill 242 – 2021 HSE rate 272 and HBF 264)
93% waste diverted from landfill
Total water use m3/£100k project value down from 3.8 in 2020 to 2.8m3/£100k
+90% reduction in ‘Tonnes of Construction waste/£100k project value’ down to 1.4t
New Technologies Helping us Achieve our Targets? Site safety is of paramount importance to us and we have gone to great lengths to ensure our technological systems provide a watertight environment in which risks to the health and safety of our workers, our subcontractors and the public are eliminated. Our Msite induction system is an online software package providing workers with remote inductions before they attend site. In 2021, we inducted over 90% of site based workers online. The system allows workers to log in and out of site quickly and efficiently through a simple mobile phone app, highlighting their credentials for the job to the site management team. The system has an inbuilt face reader which allows for completely contactless, biometrically authenticated, COVID-safe sign-in and site access. It also automatically blocks access to our sites if workers don’t have the correct permissions or cards, such as CSCS, CPCS, SMSTS, SSSTS and CISRS. The data gathered using this system provides us with deeper insights, for example local labour stats, trades on site, total hours worked, allowing our site teams much greater control over the safety of our developments. It also records all incidents on site and generates our safety codes. We are trialling QR code technology to enable our site-based staff and our subcontractors to quickly
Hill AFR All Accidents 4.50 4.00 3.50 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00 0.50 0.00
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
and efficiently report health and safety issues. The technology has the added benefit of assisting members of the public with any enquiries and is an effective way to capture information, develop best practice and engage with the community. With our environmental impact always in mind, our Smart Waste software system is helping us to achieve our net zero carbon objectives by allowing us to track energy usage from all sites and keep it under constant review. In 2021, we set ourselves an Avg Safety Inspection Score target of 80%. Through maintaining a positive standard and reducing the amount of poor performing sites, we were able to attain our target performance across the Group.
Safety Onsite A bird’s eye view of Knights Park, Cambridge.
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Annual Review 2021
3. Health, Safety and Environment Cont.
Environmental Site Management
Water
Waste Management
Health and Safety
Community and Customer Engagement
Socio-economic Development
Changes Our demolition supply chain partner, Rye Group Limited, has committed to the switch to Green D+ HVO for all their plant.
RANKING
Joint 1st
2nd
2nd
3rd
Joint 1st
Joint 1st
96.9%
91.7%
84.4%
SCORE
100% 87.5% 99.2% NextGeneration HSE Benchmarking
NextGeneration is a programme that benchmarks the UK’s 25 largest housebuilders on their sustainability performance using a range of robust criteria, including company strategy, governance, management of water, waste, carbon, drainage, ecology and health and safety. The assessment is primarily based on publicly available information and has been a key driver of greater transparency and accountability within the sector. We took part in the exercise for the second time in 2021, with the homes we completed in 2020 being assessed and were pleased to rank highly for areas including health and safety, water, waste management and environmental site management. Strengths
Environmental Site Management
Water
Waste Management
Health and Safety
Joint 1st
2nd
2nd
3rd
100%
87.5%
99.2%
96.9%
Ranking Score
Measuring Our Impact on the Environment In 2021 we introduced a new data collection system which enabled us to collect information on a range of environmental performance indicators. This has allowed us to more accurately measure performance in 2021 and set challenging targets for 2022. Category
K.P.I.
Metric
Hill Performance 2021
2022 (Target)
Environmental Waste
Total waste diverted from landfill
%
93
>95
Waste
Reduction in construction waste
Tonnes/£100k project value
1.4
<1.4
Energy
Energy use
KgCO2e/£100k project value
146
<131
Water
Water use
m3/£100k project value
2.8
<2.8
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Dressing For Business A new range of PPE and equipment has been introduced to keep staff safe.
Learnings from COVID Maintaining a hands-on business throughout a pandemic was no easy feat, but we have put the positive lessons learned from COVID to good use as we return to work post lockdown.
well as in our regional and head offices, creating a safer working environment for everyone, whether their desk is at head office or in one of our construction cabins.”
On our sites, we have developed and introduced specific items of PPE and other equipment to keep people safe. Buffs, which had been supplied to be worn to cover the mouth and nose to stop the transmission of the virus, have been adopted as seasonal neckwear, to protect against the elements when working outdoors through the colder months.
Video communication was a key factor in keeping staff connected during COVID and, using those learnings, Paul and his team have set up monthly H&S video logs (vlogs) to keep our teams up to date on developments in HSE. It’s a direct way of keeping everybody informed, as are the regular staff newswires, email newsletters and on-site training sessions.
“COVID made us rethink how we work,” explains Paul Dyster, Group Head of Safety. “We changed the office layouts to provide increased working space for our teams on construction sites as
Video Updates Hill’s vlog communications deliver health and safety information in a more engaging way.
“Video communication was a key factor in keeping staff connected during COVID.”
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Annual Review 2021
3. Health, Safety and Environment Cont.
Quality in Everything We Do This year we appointed a new quality systems manager who is responsible for driving our quality strategy, policies and processes, maintaining our high standards and ensuring consistency across our business. Part of the role will involve preserving our high ISO certification standards – ISO 9001, 14001, 45001 and 50001. We have invested heavily in digital tools, working groups and internal governance structures on fire safety. We now have great expertise, the right consultants and the right systems in place to give partners, lenders and end users absolute confidence in their homes. “As a business, we help, influence and train people to achieve what we want them to achieve – but it must start with the individual. If you can’t say with pride, that’s my site, then that’s not right, that’s not Hill. And that’s not only about safety, it’s also about how the site looks to others, it’s about interaction with the local environment and the community.” Paul Dyster, Group Head of HSE
Mental Wellbeing We have introduced mental health first aiders into our business to promote a positive working environment onsite and in our offices.
Physical and Mental Health The physical and mental health of our people is equally important to us. Each of our regions has dedicated mental health first aiders, trained by us in association with the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity, set up to provide emotional, physical and wellbeing support to construction workers and their families. Our staff also have access to a counselling service and an online rewards club offers free health, fitness and dietary advice to our teams.
Paul Dyster
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A Safe Return To Work Our Msite app based technology allows workers to access sites and health and safety information direct from their mobile phones.
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards
5*homebuilder customer satisfaction for five consecutive years
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Creating homes for modern lifestyles Our approach to housebuilding is to prioritise quality in all that we do, with excellent customer service and beautiful, modern homes that will delight our customers for generations. We craft our homes around our customers’ needs and the demands of modern living. Beautiful design is central to every single home we build – because our customers are individuals, so too are our award-winning designs. Our formula is simple and it has helped us retain our 5* homebuilder status in the Home Builders Federation’s annual customer satisfaction survey for five consecutive years, despite the challenges of building through a pandemic. In this customer satisfaction survey, carried out by the principal representative body for private sector home builders, our customers voted overwhelmingly that they would recommend us to a friend.
“Achieving this success has been challenging throughout a year of turmoil, but we did everything possible to ensure our customers could continue with their home-buying journeys via digital alternatives. We pride ourselves on putting our customers’ needs first, with a dedicated customer service team responsible for ensuring our homeowners have the best possible experience.” Amelia Sellek, Group Head of Customer Service
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards Cont.
Continued Success In the past 22 years Hill has won more than 460 industry titles, including WhatHouse? Housebuilder of the Year twice and Best Medium Housebuilder at the Housebuilder Awards in 2021 and 2020. After a successful 2020, during which we won a number of the industry’s most coveted awards, in 2021 we won Best Design for three storeys or fewer for the Davenport Villas at Mosaics, Oxford at the Housebuilder Awards. These stunning homes were also crowned Best Family Home at the prestigious Evening Standard New Homes Awards and were also highly commended in the Best out of London Home category. We won Best Home, Best Sustainable Development and Best Medium Housebuilder (Silver) at the WhatHouse? Awards 2021.
The Best Home Greg Hill, Deputy Chief Executive and Rebecca Littler, Group Sales and Marketing Director collecting the WhatHouse? Award for Best House.
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Recognising CIP Success Tom Hill, Board Director with Cambridge Investment Partnership collecting the Best Development Team South award at the Inside Housing Awards.
In conjunction with Building with Nature, we were awarded a 2021 Housing Design Award for our highly sustainable Knights Park development in Eddington, Cambridge, which the judges praised as an “exemplar of designing for climate change with a 360-degree vision, such as its clever ventilation strategies so homes won’t overheat, now a real issue for nearly all new-builds.”
Design Mastery Our Bayswater Villas at our Mosaics development featured on the BBC’s Design Masters programme.
Mosaics Takes Centre Stage The Bayswater Villas in Oxford’s Mosaics development were featured on the BBC2 show, Interior Design Masters, which aired in March. Hosted by Alan Carr and judge Michelle Ogundehin, the show challenged 10 interior designers to meet a variety of design briefs in different settings every week, with the ultimate winner being awarded a lucrative commercial contract.
“The outstanding beauty of Mosaics was a fitting backdrop to an excellent episode, and I was very impressed with the quality of the contestants’ designs.” REBECCA LITTLER, GROUP SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR
Mosaics also hosted a Remembrance Day poppy event with local children from Barton Park Primary School and the Lord Mayor of Oxford. The students crafted and painted over 100 poppies from recycled plastic bottles at a special workshop before the event and this beautiful symbol of hope and peace now has pride of place at the development, creating a fitting tribute to all our fallen heroes.
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards Cont.
Falling Into Place The opportunity to buy a first home in their ideal location proved too attractive to resist for Dan and George.
Meet Our Customers
Dan and George First-time buyers find their dream home at The Gade Lockdown provided the impetus for 29-year-old Dan Nicholls and 31-year-old George Christou to move into a rented flat together. But it was our stunning new development, The Gade in Hemel Hempstead that persuaded them to buy their first home as a couple.
Other plus points of their new home, say the couple, are its energy efficiency and sustainability, with high standards of insulation.
Keen to stay close to their local area of Apsley with all its great amenities, The Gade offered everything they needed in a location they love. With the cobbled Tudor High Street and Gadebridge Park on their doorstep, they are also close to Hemel Hempstead station for an easy commute to London for work. When working from home, they have been very impressed with the space their new twobedroom, two-bathroom property offers. Dan said: “Hill has really thought about the layouts of the homes at The Gade, they are bright, spacious, offer more storage than others we had considered, and we get our own parking space.”
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Full Of Flavour In the autumn, we hosted an Octoberfest event at The Gade, with traditional music, beer, and food to give locals a taste of Germany’s popular gastronomic festival.
Gill City Chic at St James Quay While the COVID pandemic may have seen an exodus from cities to the countryside, there were also those who bucked the trend. Among them was 67-year-old Gill Lack, who swapped her rural two-bedroom end of terrace house for a onebedroom apartment at our riverside St James Quay development in Norwich. Gill had been living in a village by the sea, but lockdown made her realise she needed to be in a location with more variety. St James Quay ticked all the right boxes, providing the benefits of city living, while still having quiet space within reach.
Moving into the property was seamless, with nothing to upgrade or adapt. “I was very impressed with the fixtures and fittings and was surprised to hear that they came as standard. There isn’t anything that I would change in terms of finish and specification,” said Gill. Gill also enjoys her own private outdoor space and was happy to swap the garden at her old house for a lovely new balcony. “It’s less upkeep which is a bonus, and my balcony is also southfacing, with uninterrupted views of the river. I can imagine myself there with a friend drinking prosecco on a warm summer’s day.”
Norwich city centre with its restaurants, cafés and attractions is just ten minutes away, while her onebedroom apartment is set in landscaped gardens for relaxing, with a path along the river. City Style Gill is enjoying city living from her room with a view.
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards Cont.
Valentina and Alex
Stepping Up Valentina and Alex bypassed the first rung on the housing ladder and bought a three-bedroom house in Cambridgeshire.
Family homes appeal to first-timers With the 2020/21 stamp duty holiday and COVIDdriven move to home working, a new buying trend emerged last year, as we saw first-time buyers bypassing the traditional one-bed starter flat in favour of bigger properties. Looking to work from home and accommodate their future family, Valentina and Alex, both 26, found their perfect match property at Rayners Green in Fordham, Cambridgeshire. “We wanted a home that would give us spacious living accommodation downstairs, larger bedrooms and plenty of green space, as well as be suitable to grow as a family,” said Alex. The couple’s combined Lifetime ISAs, taken out when they graduated from university in 2017, the government Help to Buy scheme and stamp duty
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holiday, as well as Hill’s expertly designed family spaces, helped them to achieve their dream. Buying their three-bedroom semi-detached home off-plan allowed them to choose a prime plot with a large garden and their own specifications, including a separate kitchen and living/dining room area to create a natural divide when entertaining or working. There are numerous benefits to their beautiful new home, such as high-quality appliances throughout, three double bedrooms providing the option of a roomy guest room and Alex’s home office and a driveway/carport with space for two cars. The couple also love the development’s surrounding green spaces, public transport and road links.
Quality Top results in Home Builders Federation Survey With quality a core strategic pillar, we were proud to rank number one in several categories of the Home Builders Federation (HBF) New Homes Customer Satisfaction Survey in 2021. The survey collects feedback from new build homeowners in the weeks after they take possession of their new property. We achieved excellent results, maintaining our 5* status with a score of 94% and ranking first for both the fewest reported defects and the least number of defects in our new build homes, and second for the standard of finish in our homes. We were also listed in the top four housebuilders for the quality of our homes.
As a privately-owned company, we are proud to be amongst the leading housebuilders in the industry, punching well above our weight.
Independent third-party company SSUK carries out regular monthly inspections on all our live sites. Results are based on a rigorous scoring matrix, which is reviewed monthly by Hill’s senior board to maintain our high safety standards.
Recognising Quality Our purchasers scored us very highly for quality in a new homes survey.
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards Cont.
Building On Our Achievements In 2020 we appointed Andy Mullins as Head of Quality, a newly created role augmenting our longstanding commitment to building standards. Formerly NHBC Head of Inspections, Andy has over 40 years of experience in housebuilding and construction. Leading our digital quality systems, and working alongside our committed production teams, Andy is responsible for embedding Group-wide processes and ensuring a consistent approach to procedures and build quality across our estate. New initiatives As part of our commitment to quality and dedication to doing the right thing, we are backing several industry and government initiatives to improve building safety and have implemented new processes in our business. We are a registered signatory for the Building a Safer Future Charter, created to promote a positive culture in the safety of the built environment by ensuring buildings are safe for those living and working in them. We have invested in, and are currently progressing our membership to Charter Champion status, demonstrating our dedication to safety in our industry. We are also part of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Golden Thread Initiative (GTI). Recommended by Dame Judith Hackitt’s Building A Safer Future Report, delivered after the Grenfell Tower fire, this golden thread acts as a tool to manage buildings as holistic systems, allowing people to use information to design, construct and operate buildings safely and effectively. “We are required to establish and maintain a golden thread of key information through the life
Governance We are part of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Golden Thread Initiative.
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Continuously Improving Our leadership team are involved in several initiatives to drive improvements in the construction industry.
of each project so that the owners know and have access to all the key data relating to the safety of their building,” says Andy. “We’ve implemented golden thread and change control procedures on all our projects since November 2021, well ahead of the anticipated legislative requirement, which will come into force in 2023. We wanted to get ahead because it is the right thing to do and because, by the time the legislation becomes enacted, it will already be well ingrained in our everyday practices.” We go above and beyond the legislation requirements in several areas, promoting greater safety standards and giving our residents peace of mind. For example, fire sprinklers are installed in all our multi-occupancy apartment blocks regardless of height, and not just in the areas where we are legally obliged to fit them. Our Deputy Chief Executive Greg Hill also chairs a quarterly Fire Strategy Group, continuing our commitment to doing the right thing by making our systems more robust.
Site Vigilance Sites are constantly monitored and inspected to ensure they meet all legislative requirements and Hill’s own exacting standards.
We are part of the HBF’s Tall Buildings Group, formed after the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017 to strategically review the challenges and solutions involved in developing tall buildings, from fire strategy, material choices, regulatory reform and best practice responses to safe building performance. As part of this group, we work collaboratively with cross-industry working parties to respond to government consultations and feed into emerging government policy. We are members of the National House Building Council (NHBC) Technical Forum, where representatives from the top UK builders meet monthly to discuss technical matters and take back practical quality solutions to our businesses. We have implemented SnagR, a digital inspection and recording system to replace our former paper QA process and we continue to deploy it across all operational teams. It has allowed us to improve our reporting, helping with inspections and quality assurance.
Building Information Modelling (BIM) continues to be a part of our approach, allowing everyone involved in a project to access the same information. We are active members of BIM for Housing and Housing Association working groups. Our Standard Details approach sets out standard specifications and materials for each site, with everything listed and adhered to. This has been industry reviewed to meet standard regulatory and warranty requirements and ensures consistency across all our projects. It also makes it easier for our teams to spot any anomalies. Over 11,000 inspections have been carried out by the NHBC across our sites and we have accessed all the data collected. We will be using this data to focus on certain key areas, from brickwork to foundations, in a new series of quality campaigns that will be launched over the next 12 months.
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Annual Review 2021
4. Customer, Quality, Design and Awards Cont.
Design Innovations In the face of shifting markets and changing demands, be they from building regulations or the climate, agility and the ability to shift focus is important in designing successful developments. From managing a feasibility study for a small development of 25 houses, to designing a 1,000home scheme in the centre of London, the need for adaptability continues to be a key factor in the work we do. While complex planning meetings and presentations continue to take place on web cam, we are still successfully hitting our targets and deadlines. Designing for future trends Technology: We are already working successfully with Building Information Modelling (BIM) and our investment in photo-realistic CGI technology continues to improve collaborations with our partners, whether delivering a 3D model of a forthcoming development for a public consultation or taking council members on a fly-through of a regeneration project. Sustainability: With the aim of reducing energy consumption and bills for our residents, our designs increasingly focus on sustainable solutions, using a fabric first approach. With photovoltaic (PV) panel and mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) renewable energy now standard, our early-stage designs also now focus on the orientation of homes and fenestration sizing to reduce over heating. From drainage solutions with biodiversity gains, to material selection and circular economy principles, we are constantly refining our designs for a more sustainable future. Layouts: Changing lifestyles have changing needs and with the rise in home working, as well as increasing awareness of mental health issues, our designs are changing accordingly. It’s essential to create calm, relaxing, well-lit spaces within our homes, as well as a place for home working, either in private zones or communal collaboration areas within developments. Trends have moved from home gyms to home offices and in our larger developments we’re creating designated WeWork style spaces for the community.
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Changing Rooms Lifestyle changes, especially the working from home trend, is influencing how we design and use space in our homes.
“The high point for me comes when I see our designs becoming reality and people enjoying the space that is now their home.” JEREMY THURLBY, DESIGN TEAM MANAGER
Future of Design: As energy and fuel prices skyrocket, sustainable technology and building methods are coming into sharp focus. With the improvement of battery technology, we’re moving towards a future of home heating and car charging that will take place off the national grid. We are also exploring the concept of car clubs for some of our projects. With all of this in mind, we’re working towards Building for a Healthy Life (BHL) accreditation in 2022. We’re a good match – our aims align with BHL’s principles, and we are focused on creating places that are better for people and nature.
Quality Design And Build This new home at The Gade in Hemel Hempstead exemplifies our commitment to quality build, which was recognised in the NHBC awards.
High-quality materials and building standards are now a given. The quality we seek to imbue in our design is the interaction between people and space, from the entrances of developments to the residents’ living spaces, to interacting with their neighbours, and the open spaces surrounding their homes.
Pride In Glenn Glenn Shreeves led his team to two national award wins for their outstanding work on site.
Pride in the Job Winners We were proud to win three awards at the National House Building Council’s (NHBC) Pride in the Job Awards. The award is designed to showcase best practice, reward excellence, and inspire site managers to build homes of the highest quality. Our site manager, Glenn Shreeves and the construction team at The Gade, Hemel Hempstead were crowned Regional Winners (Central), an outstanding achievement. The team also won a Seal of Excellence award for their work in Hertfordshire. Nick Gardner, our senior site manager at Prospect Ring in London, also won a Seal of Excellence Award, and Mark O’Neil, project manager for our Major Projects region won a Quality Award for his work on Harrow One, London.
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NOTTIN
Annual Review 2021
5. Area of Operation
DERBYSHIRE
STAFFORDSHIRE
Overview Through forging new partnerships, whilst taking care of existing relationships, we have scaled up our operations into new and exciting regions.
LEICESTER
SHROPSHIRE
WEST MIDLANDS
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54
WORCESTERSHIRE
173
WARWICKSHIRE
HEREFORDSHIRE
projects in total
84 GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Projects completed in 2021 Projects under development Future projects
OXFORDSHIRE
Hill offices MMC factories BERKSHIRE
BRISTOL
1
Lampton Parkside, London
WILTSHIRE
HAMPSHIR
Lampton Parkside, a joint venture partnership with Notting Hill Genesis in West London, includes 753 homes set on the edge of Lampton Park.
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NGHAMSHIRE LINCOLNSHIRE
RSHIRE
NORFOLK
RUTLAND
CAMBRIDGESHIRE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
SUFFOLK
BEDFORDSHIRE
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
ESSEX HERTFORDSHIRE
1 LONDON
SURREY
KENT
RE
WEST SUSSEX
EAST SUSSEX
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Annual Review 2021
5. Area of Operation Cont.
London 9
11
44
projects in total
2
24 Projects completed in 2021 Projects under development
3
Future projects 1
1
Ham Close, Richmond
Project value: £188m New homes: 452
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2
Douglas Bader Park, Barnet
Project value: £280.2m New homes: 753
3
Aylesbury Estate, Walworth
Project value: £171.5m New homes: 581
Cambridgeshire 13
14
54
projects in total
ELY
HUNTINGDON
27 Projects completed in 2021 Projects under development
2
Future projects
1 3
CAMBRIDGE
1
Marleigh, Cambridge
Project value: £424.6m New homes: 968
2
Knights Park, Cambridge
Project value: £330m New homes: 834
3
Ironworks, Cambridge
Project value: £87m New homes: 236
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Annual Review 2021
5. Area of Operation Cont.
Oxfordshire and Bristol 1
12
projects in total
7
4 4
1 2
BRISTOL
OXFORDSHIRE
Projects completed in 2021 Projects under development Future projects
3
BRISTOL
1
Mosaics, Oxford
Project value: £90m New homes: 237
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2
Littlemore Park, Oxford
Project value: £62m New homes: 273
3
McArthur’s Yard, Bristol
Project value: £36m New homes: 142
4
Canalside, Oxford
Project value: £148m New homes: 317
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Annual Review 2021
6. Development Portfolio
An expanding range of high quality new homes
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Knights Park, Cambridge Knights Park in Cambridge has caught the eye of awards judges for its quality and sustainability credentials.
Our diverse portfolio of residential developments, which range from landmark mixed-use regeneration schemes to inner-city apartments and family homes in rural communities, all share one unifying characteristic – quality.
There is no better validation of our quality standards than our success at winning prestigious industry awards, such as Best Home, Best Sustainable Development and Best Medium Housebuilder (Silver) at the WhatHouse? Awards 2021.
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Annual Review 2021
6. Development Portfolio Cont.
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Mosaics, Oxford This stunning development on the edge of Oxford has won Best Development and Best Home accolades in WhatHouse? Awards in 2020 and 2021.
In addition we were awarded 5-star status in the Home Builders Federation’s annual customer satisfaction survey for a fifth consecutive year, reflecting our commitment to building homes of the highest standard; homes created for living.
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Annual Review 2021
6. Development Portfolio Cont.
Our Developments 1 1
Lampton Parkside, Hounslow
Located on the edge of a stunning 40-acre park, Lampton Parkside is an inspiring collection of studio, one, two and threebedroom apartments, duplexes and three-bedroom houses.
2
St James Quay, Norwich
A new urban community of first-phase apartments, combining modern architecture with deep-rooted heritage, which are sympathetically regenerating the central Norwich riverside area.
3
Fish Island Village, Hackney Wick
Now in its final release, these one, two and three-bedroom apartments are part of a vibrant canalside community.
4
Rayners Green, Fordham
A stunning mix of 150 beautifully designed homes in the idyllic village of Fordham, Cambridgeshire.
5
4
The Gade, Hemel Hempstead
This exceptional collection of one and two-bedroom apartments enjoys a tranquil location on the banks of the River Gade, and is now in its final phase.
6
Aspects, Stevenage
Launching in 2022, this attractive collection of contemporary apartments and houses in a leafy setting are conveniently located close to Stevenage town centre.
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The Pavilions, Newport
A charming collection of just 24 family homes in the well-appointed Essex village of Newport, Saffron Walden.
8
The Hawthorns, Sawston
Surrounded by countryside on the edge of the historic village of Sawston, The Hawthorns is a new residential community of one, two, three and four-bedroom homes.
9
The Artisan, Hampstead
This boutique collection of 31 homes is located just minutes from the green expanse of Hampstead’s famous heath and vibrant community.
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7
2
3
5
6
8
9
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Annual Review 2021
6. Development Portfolio Cont.
1
Marleigh, Cambridge
Marleigh is a landmark development of 968 homes delivered in joint venture with Marshall Group, which includes a market square, complete with shops, a primary school, and a nursery.
2
1
Timber Works, Cambridge
Conveniently situated only 1.4 miles from Cambridge City Centre, and set around a landscaped park, much of this collection of apartments and houses enjoy views of green open space.
3
Ironworks, Cambridge
Located very close to popular Mill Road, this modern, attractive development is enviably positioned, with excellent links to Cambridge train station.
4
Knights Park, Eddington
Multi-award winning Knights Park is a collection of highly sustainable homes situated within an ambitious new district by Cambridge University designed for 21st century sustainable living.
4 5
Rubicon, Cambridge
With its sloped roofs, shimmering bricks of differing hues and beautiful landscaping, Rubicon contains an exceptional range of apartments, penthouses and well-designed co-working spaces.
6
Capstone Fields, Cambridge
These homes are set within the picturesque village of Hardwick and built using energy efficient materials that sympathetically reflect the character of local architecture.
Coming Soon... Finchingfield A collection of 50 attractive, energy-efficient homes, sensitively designed to complement the picturesque and historic character of the sought after village of Finchingfield, Essex.
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2
3
5
6
Cranbrook This development of up to 180 homes including an ‘Oast House’, sits nestled within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
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Annual Review 2021
6. Development Portfolio Cont.
Completed Developments 1 1
Harrow One, Harrow
These modern apartments are designed around a landscaped courtyard garden, close to Harrow on the Hill with excellent connections to London.
2
Mosaics, Oxford
This award-winning development at Barton Park borders the rolling Oxfordshire countryside. Here, we have set attractive homes, overlooking scenic parkland, with ample green space for a rural lifestyle on the edge of this popular city.
3
Malvern Place, Stevenage
Perfectly located in Stevenage, Malvern Place benefits from an abundance of green space, and thoughtfully designed homes, with luxurious interiors and plenty of light-filled living spaces.
4
Meridian Fields, Cambridge
3
So called due to its proximity to the earth’s Meridian line, this 98 home development near Cambridge comes complete with stunning views of rolling countryside.
4
50
2
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities
Communities and social value With community central to every project we deliver, our driving force is to ensure we make a positive contribution to the people living and working at our developments. We aim to ensure the impact of this work is felt for generations to come through social, economic and environmental programmes designed to improve the prosperity and wellbeing of an area. We provide apprenticeships and support training schemes to facilitate education and local job opportunities, opening up our industry to a more diverse pool of talent. And by supporting charities and social enterprises, we help to tackle a number of issues faced by some of the most vulnerable and marginalised in our society. So while bricks and mortar can provide one of the most basic human rights – a home – we’re also committed to building with the social and economic tools conducive to happy, thriving communities, now and in the future.
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UrbanPlan Workshop with Cambridge Sixth Formers
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities Cont.
Tackling Homelessness SoloHaus, our innovative modular homes initiative for single people, was born out of our Foundation 200 programme, which launched in 2019 to mark Hill’s 20th anniversary and help address the issues of homelessness. Over five years we have pledged to gift 200 modular homes, at a cost of £15m, to homelessness charities to provide safe, comfortable and sustainable homes to single people experiencing periods of homelessness. To help local authorities meet the acute housing demand from an ever-increasing number of rough sleepers, we have also made SoloHaus homes available for sale at close to base cost. We aim to ensure that the SoloHaus model remains affordable and accessible to as many partners as possible so that we can collectively, as an industry and as a country, do more to create truly diverse housing solutions for all.
Seasonal Cheer As well as gifting homes we made sure residents who moved in before Christmas had a welcoming box of goodies to help them celebrate.
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To date we have gifted 32 homes and delivered 86 SoloHaus homes in total across the country. By the end of the project’s lifespan in 2025, we predict we will have housed over 800 formerly homeless residents in total. Solutions like SoloHaus happen through innovative collaborations, combining private sector resources and the energy of specialist charities to meet the needs of local authorities in addressing critical social issues in our society. SoloHaus units are manufactured in the West Midlands by our sister company, Volumetric Modular, which specialises in custom-built MMC housing-related solutions. The technology behind SoloHaus was pioneered in partnership with Volumetric Modular, Hill and leading homelessness charities, to create the ultimate solution for homeless follow-on accommodation. Working in partnership with an MMC specialist ensures each SoloHaus home is built to our exacting standards and is completed efficiently, ensuring they can be deployed to those who need them quickly.
A Bright Future First Year Trainee of the Year, Lucy-Ann Wallace with Senior Site Manager, Kristopher Garrett.
Supporting Women into Construction Our award-winning partnership with Women into Construction (WiC), a not-for-profit organisation that provides bespoke support for women looking to work in the construction industry, has been in place since June 2019. It has delivered one-to-one advice and guidance, training to gain CSCS cards, and virtual and on-site work placements to raise aspirations and awareness of careers in construction to women living in Cambridgeshire. The project has engaged with over 170 women to date. Eighty-six of the 170 participants have registered for further support from WiC’s Project Manager in Cambridgeshire, Shelley Lawrence, who is seconded by Hill. Twenty women, supported by the programme, are now working in careers in construction. Our partnership is being renewed in May 2022, with a revised model that allows us to replicate the huge success in Cambridgeshire to other regions in which we operate. Participants reported increased confidence and industry knowledge after taking part in the programme. An attendee commented: “The virtual work experience provided by WiC was impeccably organised and delivered and very well supported by team Hill.”
“I couldn’t recommend this programme highly enough. It’s opened my eyes to a whole new world of opportunities, and it’s given me the confidence and insight I needed to realise my passion. Thank you!” The restrictions of a global pandemic meant we had to find new and creative ways of supporting our partners and in 2021 we held a virtual work experience week for WiC members, in association with Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP). Designed to give participants an insight into the world of construction, it was open to all women registered onto the Cambridgeshire WiC programme. The online event provided a useful education tool while members waited for their practical work placement opportunities to start post lockdown.
“The involvement of Hill’s team was invaluable. They offered excellent insight into the disciplines and specific roles during the various mock meetings. The activities they provided were purposeful and thought provoking. It was interesting and inspiring to hear all your stories and made me realise just what’s possible. I now feel confident in applying in the industry. Thank you for taking the time this week, and for investing in getting women into construction.” Virtual work experience week participant
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities Cont.
Hands On Experience Site experience is one of a number of areas of help we give to women considering a career in construction.
“I had doubts and worries entering the construction industry being a woman, however the Hill Western Team were so welcoming and took time to show me the ins and outs of the construction industry which I will never forget.” Alisha, WiC member
Together with WiC, we have designed bespoke diversity and inclusion (D&I) training inline with our corporate values to promote inclusive work environments across the business. This half-day interactive session, facilitated by WiC’s D&I specialist Yvonne Howard, has now been undertaken by 719 staff members as mandatory training.
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WiC’s objectives are to: y Raise the awareness of careers in construction through events and talks to showcase the range of jobs, promote the sector and dispel the myth of gender-segregated roles. y Engage, inform and deliver advice to local women to enable them to make informed career choices and develop individual action plans to access employment in the construction sector. y Deliver pre-employment support for women, including a mix of employability support, training to gain CSCS cards, supported work placements and mentoring to produce site and work-ready candidates. y Support Hill and our supply chain to recruit women into sustainable employment in construction. WiC has calculated that for every £1 spent, the programme generated £4 in social value. We are delighted to report that, for the third year, running our Trainee of the Year Award was won by a female trainee.
WiC at Mill Road, Cambridge:
Meet Ellen Ellen was the first woman to go through the Hill training programme and was introduced to WiC by a friend who works at Hill. After completing her CSCS card, she took part in work experience at our Cambridge Investment Partnership site, The Meadows, and shadowed the senior site manager so successfully that the team put her forward for a site assistant role. She was offered the job and started working on our Mill Road site in Cambridge in October 2021.
Ellen
WiC at Marleigh, Cambridge:
Meet Emma
Emma
When Emma decided to swap her job as a teacher for something more active, WiC assisted her move into work in the property industry. After completing her CSCS training, Emma decided to put herself through her slinger/signaller qualification and joined the Hill team at Marleigh in Cambridge on a work placement. She worked with the supervisor to put her training into practice, gaining site experience and impressing the team so much that she was offered a permanent role as a slinger/signaller operative.
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities Cont.
Apprenticeships At Ironworks
Training for the Future We are supporting the next generation of our industry. Through our partnerships with training schemes, as well as internship and apprentice programmes, we are helping our workforce to achieve the skills they need, developing their potential to embrace an exciting future. One of our key achievements this year has been the huge success story of our apprenticeship programme in Cambridgeshire. In association with K10, a training provider which addresses the ongoing problem of declining numbers of apprenticeships in construction and provides valuable skills training, we started an intensive recruitment process for our 21 candidates in May. The first apprentices started on site in August and retention has been high, with only one apprentice leaving the programme due to personal reasons.
This Hill initiative is unique in providing training for apprentices across our sites for two to three years, depending on the trades. With tuition fees supported by Cambridge City Council Apprenticeship Levy, we are delighted to work with communities to provide valuable employment skills and contribute to the local economy. An impressive 98% of apprentices who complete K10 training go on to find full time employment in the industry. “We’re proud to be training the next generation of skilled workers for our sector,” says Hill Group Talent Development Manager Simon Hawkins. “We’re also working closely with our subcontractors to help them achieve the ambitious target of filling 5% of their roles with apprentices.”
Social Through focusing our efforts on communities and charities, we created £170 million of added social value in 2021.
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Apprenticeship Awards The K10 Annual Apprenticeship Awards were set up to reward the hard work and dedication of apprentices on the Hill Cambridgeshire apprenticeship programme. In 2021 recognition was given to the Best College Performer, Best Team Player and Best Site-based Apprentice. “I have learnt a lot so far and have found the support from the team on the site has been a massive help. It’s great that Hill have put something like this together for people like me.” Jack Madden, Apprentice Dry Liner, Winner Best Team Player
This year a special Mentor of the Year award highlighted the valuable support of our subcontractor partners in the scheme. “I had lost a little faith in the ability to entice, teach and retain young workers willing to help in the construction industry where we have all been battling through the shortage of bricklayers coming through. This scheme has not only restored that faith but has gone beyond what I thought with its rigorous recruitment process.” Jake Jeffs, Director JJ Building Services, Winner Mentor of the Year
Apprenticeship at Aylesbury Estate:
Meet Darren Thirty-six-year-old Darren applied for a plumbing apprenticeship at Aylesbury Estate, which we are delivering for the London Borough of Southwark. One year later, Darren has not only finished his diploma, achieving NVQ level II in plumbing and heating, he is also now a full time employee at JS Wright. “I have always loved working with my hands, it’s what I’m really good at. I have spent most of my career working as a plumber’s mate on domestic jobs, but I really wanted to achieve some qualifications and learn the trade properly. I spotted this role on the Southwark Council website and haven’t looked back since. I might go on to do some further exams at some point, but right now I am really happy, and this will certainly be a year I will never forget.”
Innovative course materials for bricklayers Early in 2021, we collaborated with Churchill Contractors, Aldershot College and housing provider VIVID to create a series of films that cover all aspects of the NVQ course in bricklaying. Shot on location at the North Town estate in Aldershot, the films have updated and replaced ageing course materials, helping train bricklayers of the future. The films will be used in schools and colleges as part of a drive to help raise the standards of vocational training in bricklaying and encourage more young people into the profession.
“We are delighted to support this initiative to proactively raise standards of training in bricklaying, particularly as our industry faces a worrying shortfall in workers. We are pleased that North Town will be featured as an example of best practice for the bricklaying trade as we take enormous pride in always maintaining the highest standards of presentation and craftsmanship on site.” Steve Griffiths, Hill Project Manager for North Town, Aldershot
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities Cont.
Construction Youth Trust
Youth training in Sussex
We hosted an event in the London Borough of Lambeth as part of our work with the Construction Youth Trust, a charity which runs programmes to educate, train and inspire young people to start a career in construction. At the event, we discussed trades, roles and apprenticeship opportunities, as well as the multiple different routes into the industry for the young, local attendees to consider.
In May 2021, we took part in a four-week construction training course at East Sussex College. The aim of the course was to help young people, often from tough backgrounds, get into the construction industry by teaching them construction skills that will help them earn their CSCS cards.
Following the talk, five of the attendees were invited to our Knights Walk site in Lambeth, where they took part in a full site induction and orientation, as well as activities including tiling, painting and carpentry, with the assistance of our sub-contractors. Feedback from the day was excellent, with one attendee describing it as “the best day on the programme yet”.
Following the classroom presentations, Hill Project Manager Tom Mills took the students on a site tour and gave them an introduction to the different processes, sequences and areas of construction. Every student also received a hard hat, high vis vest and gloves so that they are kitted out for future employment. We also helped a selection of students wishing to work in the industry to secure interviews with our supply chain.
Insight On Site We organised a site visit for the Construction Youth Trust to give young people a better idea of the trades available to them.
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Shaping The Future We sponsored the Future of London Emerging Talent Programme to encourage young people from ethnic minorities to work in construction.
UrbanPlan workshop at Cambridge LaunchPad Cambridge LaunchPad’s virtual UrbanPlan workshop, which we helped to deliver, was attended by students from Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. Four teams from across all A-level subjects came together to design an urban regeneration plan for a fictional neighbourhood, meeting strict criteria for sustainability, community benefits and finance. We provided all the resources, including detailed role guides, models and software, and advised the teams through live remote links. “I loved how enthusiastic and imaginative the students were in creating their regeneration schemes. It’s something I would have loved to have done when I was at school so it’s great to see students being given the opportunity and an insight into the construction industry.” Lauren New, Technical Coordinator at Hill
Searching for London’s emerging talent In 2021, we sponsored the Future of London Emerging Talent Programme, aimed at individuals from London’s ethnic minority communities who aspire to work in construction. In collaboration with a group of high profile public and private sector companies driving forward housing, regeneration and development in London, Future of London is providing the opportunity to start a professional career in this sector to 15 ethnic minority candidates. It is important that those working to shape the city reflect London, but Future of London found that its members and supporters felt diversity of talent is an ongoing issue. As co-sponsor, we are helping shape this programme to help transform the housing and regeneration sector so that it better represents the community it is working for. The programme launched its first round in Feb 2022.
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Annual Review 2021
7. Supporting Communities Cont. Gold
Speed dating funding platform We joined forces with ActionFunder, a new funding platform created by Semble, an organisation dedicated to bringing businesses and communities together to make change happen. The platform links small nonprofit organisations with businesses and enables community groups and small charities to pitch just once to a large range of businesses, instead of multiple times. As a business committed to building sustainable communities, we take our responsibility to society very seriously and we are looking forward to partnering with a range of organisations through ActionFunder to help make a difference to people’s lives. Supporting Barnet’s children With several developments in Barnet, we pledged our support to Live Unlimited’s Big Christmas Challenge, to support the local community. Live Unlimited is a charity committed to helping Barnet’s looked-after children and care leavers – vulnerable young people who have been taken into local authority care mainly due to abuse, neglect, family breakdown, or illness. Set up three years ago by Barnet Council, the charity is focused on providing services to improve mental health and wellbeing, reduce social isolation and help care leavers lead fulfilling lives and reach their potential. Our donation of £5,000 was doubled thanks to this match funding campaign. Our community and social value awards We were awarded Best Work Experience Provider at the 2021 Lambeth Made Charter Mark Awards, in recognition of our work helping the next generation gain valuable experience in the construction industry. Organised by Lambeth Council, Lambeth Made, Lambeth Collet, LDN Apprenticeships and the Lambeth Youth Opportunities Fund, the awards celebrate the positive impact of business on young people and communities.
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We also achieved the 5% Club’s Gold 2021/22 Award for 2021/22. The 5% Club is a group of employers committed to building and developing a workforce as part of a socially mobile, prosperous and cohesive nation. Members aspire to have 5% of their workforce, including apprentices, sponsored students and graduate trainees, in earn-and-learn positions within five years of joining. We were given the Gold Award to recognise our commitment to developing our own workforce and helping shape the skills of young people in our industry. Community in action With artistic, social and employment projects at developments including Fish Island Village in Hackney Wick, and Rectory Park Estate in Northolt, we are committed to making a positive contribution to the people and communities we work within. NextGeneration, the benchmark which assesses and ranks the UK’s top homebuilders on their sustainability, has commended our awardwinning Fish Island Village development as a holistic approach to creating community, working alongside the area’s long-established artists and supporting new entrepreneurs. Instead of supermarkets and cafés, the lower floors of the residential blocks are filled with spaces for artists and makers, and The Trampery social enterprise delivers workspaces and accelerators to support entrepreneurs, start-ups and scale-ups. Creative Buzz Ground floor units at our Fish Island Village development in Hackney are reinforcing the local creative vibe.
The Design Engineer Construct (DEC) is an off-the-shelf offer to enable young people to engage with the built environment education and we, alongside Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association (HARCA), have gifted the programme to Langdon Park School, near our Teviot estate regeneration project. It has now been integrated into the curriculum, providing a platform to increase awareness of professional roles in the sector among 11 to 14-year-old pupils. We are also working with the school to provide work experience opportunities, summer workshops and extra-curricular projects.
In October, pupils at Hardwick and Cambourne Community Primary School buried a time capsule at our Capstone Fields development. Items placed in the capsule included an information leaflet about the school, pieces of school uniform, Hill’s technical plans, a sales brochure for the development and a copy of a local newspaper. In the future, the discovery of these items will help people to understand what it was like to live in Hardwick in the year 2021.
A Moment In Time These primary schoolchildren put together a time capsule and helped to bury it at Capstone Fields, Hardwick, for future generations to discover.
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8. Environmental, Social and Governance
Building a sustainable future At Hill, our innovations are not exclusive to construction and technology. We are also focused on the health of our planet and leading the green agenda. While Environmental, Social, and Governmental (ESG) concerns are now essential considerations for almost every business worldwide, they have been a part of Hill’s DNA for the past 22 years.
Knights Park, Cambridge
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One of our driving forces is to create real, tangible social value that leaves a positive, lasting impact on communities. We continue to deliver many of the most sustainable schemes in the UK and, as regeneration specialists, we place communities at the heart of what we do.
ESG Pillars
Environment
Social
Governance
y Creating net zero
y People come first
y Strategy and
carbon homes y Taking care of our
natural resources y Reducing our
y Communities and customers y Tackling homelessness
responsible business y Reporting and
assurance y Future proofing
environmental impacts
Vision and Targets In 2021, we strengthened our commitment to sustainability, updating our vision statement and making serious commitments to affecting change. Throughout the year, we made progress in several fundamental areas. We set our headline objectives for the three main pillars; aligned to guidelines from the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Sustainability Reporting Standard for Social Housing, the UK Green Building Council, RIBA and the NextGeneration sustainability benchmarking. Our overarching commitments are to: 1
y Reach net zero carbon in our business operations and the homes we build by 2030 y Achieve biodiversity net gain across our portfolio of land y Develop a social value strategy to create a positive impact on every community in which we work
Environment We have accelerated the switch to using ASHP’s in all pending Planning Submissions.
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We adopted data collection software, Impact Reporting, to enable us to:
y Capture a range of information across social and environmental activities on our projects y Facilitate reporting against more than 80 key performance indicators (KPIs) y Report comprehensively on our progress against the aspects of environmental, social and economic performance that are most important to our business We secured the sector’s first-ever Sustainability-Linked Loan (SLL), refinancing our Revolving Credit Facility (RCF) with a syndicate of clearing banks. As a result, our RCF interest rate is linked to the Group’s future performance against four mutually agreed sustainability targets, helping us deliver against our commitments. 3
Read the full ESG Report on our website or scan the QR code:
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8. Environmental, Social and Governance Cont.
We identified action areas under the three ESG pillars and formed related staff focus groups, with members drawn from various disciplines and demographics across the business. The groups meet every four to six weeks and report to the Sustainability Leadership Group (SLG), comprising board members, senior staff, and one trainee. The SLG receives regular feedback and recommendations from the focus groups, helping promote new approaches and better working methods to the Group board for consideration. 4
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In April 2022, we published our inaugural annual ESG report, covering the year 2021 with the following criteria:
y To set down our environmental, social and governance activities and performance y To articulate our commitments y To measure our impacts on the environment and the communities in which we work
“It feels good to know that I have played a part in the recommendations put forward to the board, which resulted in the business setting objectives for reducing carbon emissions, biodiversity net gain and adding social value.” Maisie Webb, 2020 Trainee of the Year
Closer To Nature We are building biodiversity net gain into our new developments so that we leave a positive environmental legacy in terms of habitats.
Our Head of Sustainability, Brendan Ritchie, ensures that proper oversight is given to each of our key themes and creates a free flow of innovative ideas, proposals, and data reporting around our priority areas.
Responding to Climate Change The COP 26 gathering in Glasgow in November 2021 reminded us that the time to act against the effects of climate change is now. With increased transparency around ESG performance complementing our focused set of objectives, we aim to improve performance standards radically, ensuring we play our part in tackling climate change. We aim to be the UK’s leading, most trusted housebuilder, creating exceptional homes and sustainable communities. In this regard, we will only achieve our targets by minimising our environmental impact on the planet and assisting our customers and partners to do the same.
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Next Generation Silver Award 2021 We were proud to receive a Silver Award in the 2021 NextGeneration Sustainability Benchmark. In only our second year taking part in the sustainability-led appraisal of the UK’s top 25 housebuilders, we moved from ninth to sixth position in the table. As a result, we reinforced our status as the highest ranked privately-owned business in the UK. NextGeneration’s 2021 report described our performance as “particularly impressive” given our private housebuilder status.
The new Market Square at Marleigh will feature net zero ready retail units, community facilities and open spaces. We expect that, between 2021 and 2025, we will carry out many similar developments as part of our drive towards net zero carbon in the homes we build by 2030. We have also engaged a local sculptor to create a cohesive art strategy for the Marleigh community, and we are enhancing biodiversity on the site with innovations, including hedgehog highways that enable wildlife to wander freely throughout the development.
Our Sustainability Aims Under new building regulations from 2025, gas supplies to buildings will be replaced by low-carbon energy supply, predominantly via electrically powered air-source heat pumps (ASHPs). In 2020, we decided to invest in the future of net zero ready homes. To ensure we remained ahead of legislation changes, we switched all pending planning applications across the Group away from gas. The first adapted planning submission was for Phase 2 of our landmark Marleigh development in Cambridge, where we also retrospectively changed the energy source of Phase 1 buildings to ASHPs.
Net Zero Ready Homes at Marleigh in Cambridge will be powered by air source heat pumps in line with our drive towards all our new homes being net zero by 2030.
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8. Environmental, Social and Governance Cont.
Sustainability in Action From Agar Grove in Camden, the UK’s largest Passivhaus regeneration development, to Knights Park, our Code for Sustainable Homes, Level 5 neighbourhood in Cambridge, our sites are gaining recognition for sustainability and efficiency. Passivhaus is a performance standard we adopted in the development of Agar Grove, Camden, which increases a building’s energy efficiency. The first 95 homes at Agar Grove are certified to gold Passivhaus standard and the overall development is the largest Passivhaus regeneration development in the UK. The homes are highly insulated, with triple-glazed windows, helping reduce energy consumption and ease fuel poverty. The homes also include a MVHR system which ensures clean and filtered
Agar Grove, Camden Agar Grove in Camden is the UK’s largest Passivhaus regeneration development.
It’s In The Detail A display at Knights Park explains how energy efficiency is prioritised through smart design and a fabric-led approach.
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Natural Energy Photovoltaic array serving the site offices and welfare facilities.
Top For Nature Event goers were treated to walking tours at the Housing Design Awards.
air is circulated and keeps the properties at an ambient temperature year-round. Agar Grove, developed for Camden Council, has won praise from experts for its “radical nature, saving residents money on energy and encouraging them to live sustainably.” In 2021, Agar Grove won Best Large Project at the Passivhaus Awards. Our Knights Park development in Eddington, Cambridge, won the Building with Nature category at the 2021 Housing Design Awards. The prestigious awards were held at Eddington’s community centre, Storey’s Field, allowing attendees to take a walking tour of the development and hear from the planners, technical managers and architects involved in delivering one of the UK’s leading sustainable developments. Knights Park was lauded by awards director David Birkbeck as “an exemplar of sustainable architecture and urban design for the 2020s and
beyond – a Code for Sustainable Homes, Level 5 neighbourhood which has been thoughtfully planned and is set within a network of social, tree-lined streets.” The introduction of an Ecobale compacting system at our Rubicon development in Eddington is helping to reduce the volume of discarded site waste. The system compacts site waste, lowering the number of skip movements by up to 75% and reducing the overall carbon footprint associated with waste management. An innovative idea led to the early installation of photovoltaic (PV) panels at our Rubicon site in Eddington, helping power the site cabins and welfare facilities during construction before being placed in their final position, the rooftops of the new homes. We are further developing this technology to allow energy transmission between sites.
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9. Team Hill
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A Greener Future Team Hill helped to plant 650 new trees in Redbridge during a volunteer day to help tackle climate change.
Team Hill: our strength is our people At Hill, we are focused on building not only beautiful homes and inspiring developments but strong communities, supporting people to live their best lives. It’s our mantra and every single member of our team supports it, working harder every day to make our communities better places in which to work and live.
Our greatest assets are our people, and this year Team Hill has grown to over 730 employees located across our operating regions. We’re proud of our highly talented pool of staff, who never cease to impress and inspire us with their achievements, conscientiousness and passion.
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9. Team Hill Cont.
Top Trainee Trainee of the Year 2021 Rebecca Law is pictured with Group Chief Executive Andy Hill at the annual awards ceremony.
Management Trainee Graduations and Trainee of the Year Sixteen members of our team graduated from their Management Trainee BSc (Hons) degrees in 2021, the biggest number of annual graduates we have had on our Management Trainee Programme so far. Twelve out of sixteen received first class classifications, the highest number ever in a single year. The programme is designed to create exceptional professionals in the housebuilding industry. It enables trainees to be paid a competitive salary whilst working towards a fully funded BSc (Hons) degree, with a guaranteed job after graduation. We held our annual Trainee of the Year Awards in the Marriott Hotel in Waltham Abbey to celebrate those who had graduated. Hosted
Future Leaders The 2021 intake of management trainees will be following in the footsteps of our most successful graduates to date.
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by Andy Hill, Group Chief Executive, and Simon Hawkins, Group Talent Development Manager, the awards celebrated all the outstanding work by our trainees and highlighted some incredible personal contributions from the past year. Rebecca Law was named Hill Trainee of the Year and received the Trainee Technical Coordinator of the Year Award. Tom Smith won Trainee Site Manager of the Year, Edward Williams won Trainee Contract Surveyor of the Year, and LucyAnn Wallace won First Year Trainee of the Year. The awards are testament to the ground-breaking work Hill has done to plug the skills gap and rebalance gender diversity within the workforce. We’re proud that Rebecca’s win means that Hill’s last three Trainee of the Year winners have all been female.
People Come First We have a number of working groups across the business aligning with our sustainability pillars. Of those, the People Come First working group ended 2021 by reviewing their successes and initiatives delivered, which helped inform and crystallise a new vision statement detailing the objective of the Group’s work: “The People Come First working group is dedicated to implementing change that will make everyone feel a sense of belonging at # TEAMHILL.” The group worked hard during 2021 to achieve the following: y A successful Women into Construction programme, including a virtual work experience week helping women learn more about what it’s like to work in the industry from the comfort of their home.
Broadening Our Net Our People Come First working group is constantly working to encourage a sense of belonging for everyone.
y Entering into the Emerging Talent Programme, which resulted in Hill’s first secondee in the early months of 2022. y Launching the company as a ‘Disability Confident’ employer. y Launch of the Hill Academy, a new way for young people to enter the industry via Hill.
Support For WiC Hill sponsors WiC Project Manager Shelley Lawrence who is paving the way for young women.
y Additional routes into the company and industry through new training programmes. y The launch of Hill’s Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Policy, including company wide D&I training.
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Annual Review 2021
9. Team Hill Cont.
The INSPIRING Award
In 2021 we launched the EPICS, our new staff ethos, aligning with our updated overarching business strategy with a focus on sustainability and community. All our staff, from the top down apply themselves within the framework, which stands for Extraordinary, People, Inspiring, Communities, Sustainable.
his award reflects our ambitions T and forward-thinking mindset to reward staff whose actions or achievements we are very proud of. It could be an individual who inspires others, a team who delivered excellent results on an ambitious project or someone who pioneers a creative initiative or new way of working that results in efficiency savings for the company.
ABLE IN A
PEO P
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SUS T
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Team EPICS Values Launched
EPICS
The COMMUNITIES Award his award rewards those who T have led on community initiatives within Hill, a community local to our developments or community in a broader sense. It could be a team or individual whose actions made a tangible difference. The SUSTAINABLE Award
UN
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M
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CO
M
IT I E S
IN SP
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Our EPICS Awards reward employees who display specific behaviours that align with our new core values. The EXTRAORDINARY Award his award recognises an T employee who makes exceptional contributions to Hill in support of our Vision; an individual who regularly exceeds the expectations of internal or external customers. The PEOPLE Award his award recognises an individual T or team who champion excellent teamwork or collaboration. Nominees for this award consistently go above and beyond to collaborate with external and internal customers, demonstrating a strong team ethic.
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his award recognises a team T or individual who has used their time, skills and initiative to deliver important changes in the company’s efforts to improve biodiversity, reduce our carbon footprint or deliver increased social value at our sites. This could be through finding new ways of working and fresh ideas that provide outputs that positively impact the world around us, helping us sustain the planet. At Hill, we are taking the fight against climate change very seriously, and the company’s recently updated Vision puts this front and centre. With sustainability as a key driver for the business, we included a green-focused award. The values define what we stand for and the leadership behaviours we want to encourage in each other. The awards are announced during our bi-annual staff meetings, and the five winners each receive a financial reward for their efforts.
Going the Distance We were proud to announce the promotion of Michael Turner to Deputy Regional Director within our London Region. As a former management trainee, Michael is a shining example of the opportunity for career progression within Hill. Michael joined the company through the management trainee programme in 2004 and we are delighted to see another one of our former trainees advancing their career through the business. New Home This modern open plan office suite is the new home of our Western Region.
Michael Turner
New Home in the West Following a successful 15 years since our Western Region was founded, the team in the west now has a new office to call home. Our new 4,500sqft open plan office in Abingdon has been designed to promote collaborative working, which will be crucial in helping to drive the business forward towards our ambitious goals. Growing our Western Region is an integral and important part of our growth strategy. The region has doubled in scale over the past two years with more growth forecast, including the upcoming flagship Oxford North project. Ryan Harris, Hill Regional Director, said: “This move solidifies our strength and presence within Oxfordshire as we continue to add both contract and land led opportunities to our pipeline. Our new office provides additional workspace and flexibility both to cope with the increase in employee numbers and to help fuel our growth.”
Young Planner of the Year Development Manager Dan Wilson was recognised at the 2021 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Professional Insurance Awards for Planning Excellence, the most established and respected awards in the UK planning industry. Dan was awarded a commendation in the Young Planner of the Year category, praised for his dedication and passion and praised by the judges as “an agent for change”.
The new office location will help link our London, Southern and newly formed South Western operations, whilst also providing much needed additional workspace to accommodate our ever growing workforce. As with all our regions, we look to hire locally based staff to help further our growth and long-term success, as well as boost the local economy.
Ryan Harris
Dan Wilson
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Annual Review 2021
9. Team Hill Cont.
Women At The Helm Zoe Patman-Wallis and Shelley Lawrence are at he forefront of our drive to recruit more women into construction careers.
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WiC Group Grows
Choosing to Challenge Inequality
In recognition of the work she did with Women into Construction in 2021, Zoe Patman-Wallis will be joining the Hill/WiC steering group.
Holdings Board Director, Tom Hill, showed his support for International Women’s Day on 8th March 2021 by joining colleagues in raising their hands to highlight Hill’s commitment to call out inequality in the workplace.
Zoe commented: “Over the last 18 months I have worked closely with Tom and Shelley to implement the WiC programme and I am delighted to now be working even closer with the organisation as a member of their steering group. “This steering group has been set up to ensure WiC provides the best possible service both to the participants and companies they support, as well as their funders. I’m looking forward to bringing back best practice and shared experience from others to ensure internally, we are doing all we can as an organisation to support this programme.”
LABC Inaugural Award Win Iain Liversage, Technical Manager for our Cambridge Investment Partnership region, won Construction Specialist of the Year at the 2021 LABC Building Excellence Awards. At the ceremony, Iain, who was representing East Anglia in the national finals, was recognised for his significant contribution to the construction industry and his work with Hill and CIP. It was the first time the Construction Specialist category had been included in the awards, so to win the inaugural prize was a special achievement.
A First For Iain Technical Manager Iain Liversage was named Construction Specialist of the Year, the first time the title has been awarded, at the LABC Building Excellence Awards.
Last year’s International Women’s Day theme was Choose to Challenge. The initiative’s theme for 2021 was chosen to drive awareness that it is only through challenge, debate and action that progress is made. Liam Kelly, Project Manager with Special Projects Region, is one of our key advocates for challenging inequality in construction, regularly working with and supporting WiC. He says: “I’m very familiar with Women into Construction now, I’d almost say I’m the unofficial WiC Champion for the Special Projects Region. Having placed seven women on my own site, I am now actively involved in supporting WiC to place candidates into all sites within our region. “I believe if I can get to where I have, then with the right support, encouragement and attitude anybody can. I have recently appointed a female site manager to start as an apprentice and for myself to mentor her. She came to us through WiC for a two week work placement and it was clear she had the qualities to succeed.” Liam adds: “I Chose To Challenge, to ensure that by the time my three daughters are at an age to choose their career, something as irrelevant as their gender will not stop them from having the confidence and opportunity to do it!”
Female Champion Liam Kelly, Project Manager
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9. Team Hill Cont.
Running for Good In 2021, several members of Team Hill participated in physical challenges to raise money for charities, such as running the London Marathon, the Cambridge Half Marathon and a Race the Sun triathlon event in the Brecon Beacons. Stacey Sargeant and Faye Wright ran the 26.2 mile London Marathon to raise money for The Salvation Army to help in their fight against homelessness. Running in support of the Salvation Army was part of our ongoing campaign to help end homelessness, which also includes Foundation 200, our 20th anniversary pledge to provide 200 modular SoloHaus homes for people experiencing homelessness. As part of the pledge, we are working alongside specialist homelessness charity, The Salvation Army, who are to provide ongoing support to the homes’ residents at three upcoming SoloHaus developments.
Stacey Sargeant, Customer Service Coordinator for Major and Special Projects said: “I know people who have been affected by homelessness and I know the work Hill is doing along with the Salvation Army will not only help those less fortunate in a practical sense, but also help them see that they are not invisible and people do care. I’m so happy to be a small part of that.” With The Salvation Army involved in several Foundation 200 housing developments around the UK, we were pleased to support their efforts by fundraising money that will go towards the ongoing support and upkeep of the homes. Secretary Faye Wright said: “To be given the opportunity to use my passion to raise funds for the ongoing support and running of the homes gifted by Hill’s Foundation 200 for The Salvation Army is something I am very proud and excited about.”
The Race Is On Our team on one of the gruelling stages of the Race the Sun triathlon in Wales.
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“ Running in support of the Foundation 200 was part of our ongoing campaign to help end homelessness.”
Marathon Women Stacey Sargeant and Faye Wright ran the London Marathon to raise money to help the homeless.
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Annual Review 2021
9. Team Hill Cont.
Sleeping Out Finishing Line The end of an epic event for these triathletes.
Hill staff gave up their warm beds for a night to raise awareness of homelessness and to support charities who help people sleeping out every night.
Going the Distance
Sleeping out in Solidarity
Three members of our team, Tilly Kingsley, Patrick Tatum and Tom East ran the Cambridge Half Marathon, raising over £1,000 for children diagnosed with brain tumours and their families. Each year in the East of England, approximately 40 children receive treatment for brain cancer and Tom’s Trust provides crucial psychological support to the patients and their families. In 2021, to celebrate the charity’s centenary year, its team of runners raised money equal to one year of mental health support for every one of the 40 children currently receiving cancer treatment.
In addition to our work supporting homeless people through Foundation 200, several members of our team joined staff from Cambridge Investment Partnership for this year’s Cambridge Virtual Sleepout. To raise awareness of the challenges people who are homeless face every day and help raise funds for those forced to sleep out every night, the team slept out in their gardens, garages, terraces and balconies.
In June, 12 Hill employees ventured to the Brecon Beacons to take on the gruelling Race the Sun challenge, which required team members to complete 55 miles of cycling as well as hiking 11 miles to the summit of Pen y Fan, a mountain used as a training ground for the Special Forces. In total the team raised over £10,000 for Action Medical Research, whose vital research helps defeat the diseases that devastate the lives of sick and disabled babies, children and young people in the UK and around the world.
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All money raised went to local homeless charities, Wintercomfort for the Homeless, and Cambridge United Community Trust.
Trainee of the Year 2021 Rebecca Law is now in her fourth year at Hill, having joined the Management Trainee Programme in September 2018. Whilst at school, she considered becoming an architect and did some work experience with a small firm in Cambridge, which ignited her interest in the built environment. She was drawn to our Management Trainee Programme by the opportunity to earn while she learned, having witnessed friends go to university and then struggle to find jobs. Her readiness to learn enabled her to grow in confidence by combining the support of colleagues with the fresh perspectives and learnings from university. In 2021, she was presented as Management Trainee of the Year and Trainee Technical Coordinator of the Year at our Management Trainee Awards in recognition of her excellent performance and dedication to the projects she has contributed to in her career so far. After winning these coveted accolades, Rebecca was asked to join the Sustainability Leadership Group, reflecting Hill’s ambition to ensure all are represented in our approach to environmental and social governance. She actively involves herself with school visits and careers fairs, which are fantastic opportunities to share her experiences at Hill with those considering their career pathways. She has become a role model for young women looking to enter the industry.
Rebecca went on to say: “I feel blessed to have started my technical career with Hill because everyone genuinely cares about your progress and wants you to reach your full potential. I would encourage those already in the Management Trainee Programme to push yourselves out of your comfort zone, seek opportunities, speak up when you have new ideas and listen to those with valuable knowledge and experience. "I would encourage those considering whether to go to university full time or join the Hill Management Trainee Programme to weigh up the true value of an expensive degree with no experience alongside a funded, experience-rich degree that kick starts your guaranteed career with a 5* homebuilder”. Due to her exceptional performance, Rebecca was promoted from trainee technical coordinator to assistant technical coordinator in only her third year, demonstrating our dedication to recognising and rewarding hard work. In early 2022, Rebecca represented Hill at a Cambridge United sponsored sleepout event where she helped raise over £2,000 for local homelessness charities.
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9. Team Hill Cont.
Bear Appeal A striking skip toured London to raise money for the BBC Children in Need Appeal and Hill contributed £10,000.
Pudsey Skip A Pudsey Bear branded skip, donated to us by recycling facility Powerday, toured London to raise money for BBC’s Children in Need campaign. As a thank you for the skip delivery, we donated £5,000 to the BBC’s appeal, a sum which was generously increased to £10,000 by our Group Chief Executive, Andy Hill.
Macmillan Cancer Support Continuing from previous years, in 2021 Team Hill raised £626 for Macmillan Cancer Support holding an annual Coffee Morning, where members of staff brought and sold baked goods to offices and sites to raise money for the charity.
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Reaching Out Children in some rural African villages have received sports clothing and equipment from our partners Histon Football Club in Cambridgeshire. The club donated their spare kit to school children and young adults of Kerr Ardo school in Gambia last summer and the programme is set to continue this year. We salute the club’s generosity and are delighted to see Hill-branded kit being put to use in this corner of the world.
Cleaning Up Our site team at Hounslow organised a mass litter pick to clean up Lampton Park, which borders our new Lampton Parkside development with Notting Hill Genesis.
Employee Engagement Figures
Team Hill Makes a Difference Over the latter stages of 2021, members of Team Hill were busy volunteering to improve the open green spaces near some of our London sites. Working with Trees For Cities and Redbridge Council as part of their plans to plant 15,000 trees through community projects, part of the council’s commitment to improving green spaces across the borough, ten members of Team Hill braved the inclement autumn weather, helping to plant over 650 trees at the Redbridge recreation ground. This year we joined forces with Notting Hill Genesis to launch the Lampton Parkside development and as part of our support for the area, our site team arranged and took part in a massive litter picking event at Lampton Park. This 40-acres of green space on the edge of the development features beautiful green spaces and community facilities. Twenty five members of our team each collected one full bag of rubbish on the day, helping to make it a more pleasant space for residents to enjoy.
89%
86.4%
staff responded to 2021 staff survey
feel confident about the future at Hill
85%
84.3%
staff would recommend a vacancy at Hill to a friend or relative
Employee Engagement Index (EEI)
Our eighth staff survey took place in November 2021 with a response rate of 89%, it is our most well represented staff survey on record. For 2021 Hill’s Employee Engagement Index was recorded to be 84.2, an impressive +15.8pts ahead of the UK average of 68.3pts in the same period. y 85% would recommend a vacancy at Hill to a friend or relative. y 86.4% feel confident about the future at Hill. We use staff surveys to inform strategy and implement new initiatives, with a range of new policy updates coming soon in 2022.
“Hill’s Employee Engagement Index was recorded to be 84.2, an impressive +15.8pts ahead of the UK average.”
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10. Joint Ventures
Building collaborative partnerships We have an impressive track record of working in award-winning joint ventures, delivering over 40 major joint venture regeneration schemes in partnership. Our distinctive approach to mixed-use destinations creates places that boast quality new homes, community facilities and commercial spaces, as well as new jobs and opportunities that boost the local economy.
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Harrow One, Harrow
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10. Joint Ventures Cont.
Although we’re one of the biggest developers in London and the south east, and the UK’s second largest privately-owned housebuilder, we offer complete flexibility in our structure and project leadership. This makes us a preferred partner for many public and private sector clients, with whom we have built long-lasting and trusted relationships.
“Our aim is not only to build the bricks and mortar of new homes but also to invest in lasting social value by creating places that have everything they need to thrive in the future.” Greg Hill, Deputy Chief Executive Hill Group
2021 was a busy year in terms of new partnerships, planning applications, approvals and completions, with exciting plans for developments in London, Cambridgeshire, Berkshire and Norfolk. We completed Harrow One, situated in one of London’s most sought after regeneration hotspots, ahead of schedule. This collection of stylish studios and one and two-bedroom apartments in Harrow, delivered as part of our second joint venture with Origin Housing, was handed over three months ahead of schedule,
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Local And Affordable Harrow One’s apartments were in high demand from first-time buyers, many of them from the local area.
despite the challenges of the ongoing pandemic. Demand for the properties at this popular development soared and we sold all apartments in just 10 months. Carol Carter, chief executive at Origin Housing, comments: “Effective partnership has been crucial to getting this development out of the ground and it is great to work with Hill again on our second joint venture together and to have the support of Harrow Council.” We successfully optimised the heat network performance at Harrow One, giving residents access to affordable and efficient heating and hot water. Our building innovations at the development have seen: y Lower capital costs and power consumption y Reduction in heat losses y Improved efficiency of boilers, heat pumps and CHPs
Low Energy Echo One was our first JV with Origin and it was here that we developed the low energy, low carbon heating system that we replicated at Harrow One.
We also completed Echo One in South Harrow, another joint venture with Origin Housing, successfully creating an affordable, high-quality, energy-efficient place to live, with technology that helps to address fuel poverty. Our CIBSE award-winning collaboration at Echo One, between client, contractor, and consultant, achieved industry-leading commissioned heat performance, and proved it was possible to design and deliver a low temperature heat network that consistently operates at temperatures very rarely achieved in the UK.
highly collaborative project that set the blueprint of future network delivery for Origin Housing. The partnership that has developed as a result of this project is a deeper understanding of how design and commissioning impact final performance of communal heating systems, and these lessons were implemented on the subsequent Hill and Origin joint venture, Harrow One. Both development’s systems have been described as two of the most efficient communal heating systems in the country today.”
Starting Out These two developments offer an ideal location and modern living accommodation, ideal for people taking their first steps on the property ladder.
The outcome for residents is a best-in-class, low cost, low carbon heating system, which minimises heat losses throughout the whole development, significantly below ADE CIBSE minimum requirements. It is estimated that the system saves each resident circa £160 per year on energy bills and reduces the carbon emissions of the scheme by 72 tonnes of CO2 per year. Gareth Jones, Development Director at Origin Housing commented: “The development was a
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10. Joint Ventures Cont. Partners In Rejuvenation Greg Hill with our partners Notting Hill Genesis celebrating the official launch of Lampton Parkside.
In September, we launched Lampton Parkside in West London with our joint venture partners Notting Hill Genesis. Lampton Parkside is the second phase of the Lampton Road scheme, which has already begun rejuvenating its Hounslow location with a carbon neutral civic centre and new affordable housing. This second phase of the development, designed by award-winning architects Allies & Morrison, includes 780 new homes set on the edge of Lampton Park. The buildings at Lampton Parkside, which offer far-reaching views across the 40 acres of parkland, have been designed around landscaped communal courtyard gardens and feature subtle brick tones that perfectly complement the natural environment. Lampton Parkside is well underway, with the first homes ready to move into in winter 2022. Hill and Notting Hill Genesis were delighted to welcome Leader of Hounslow Council, Steve Curran, Councillor Katherine Dunne, Cabinet Member for Communities and other guests to a celebration prelaunch event at our new marketing suite. Also in attendance from Hill were Greg Hill, Deputy Chief Executive, Andy Fancy, Regional Managing Director Cain Peters, Regional Director, and Ross Williams, Senior Development Manager.
We were joined by our partners Kate Davies, Chief Executive of Notting Hill Genesis and Group Development Director John Hughes. In October, we launched the Capstone Fields development in the village of Hardwick, Cambridgeshire. A joint venture partnership with Clarion, the development consists of two, three, four and five-bedroom houses overlooking a new communal park, surrounded by beautiful rolling countryside. The development is located just seven miles from Cambridge City Centre. Sales got off to a great start with the first residents completing in January 2022, and planning for Phase 2 expected February 2022. Capstone Fields is our second joint venture with Latimer, by Clarion Housing Group.
Open To Visitors The new marketing suite at Lampton Parkside is now open to visitors.
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Delivering Marleigh With Marshall In 2021 we secured planning for phase two at Marleigh, which will eventually deliver 1,300 homes in Cambridge.
In 2021, planning approval was secured for the second phase of our landmark Marleigh development in Cambridge, where we are working with our joint venture partner Marshall. The latest phase will see a further 421 new mixed tenure homes constructed, along with new public spaces. Construction will start on site in spring 2022, with the properties designed to have views overlooking landscaped green spaces to encourage a closer relationship with nature. Every new home will feature a range of carbon reduction features, including fabric first designs, air source heat pumps and photovoltaics. This new phase will run in conjunction with the current phase of 547 new homes, including new community facilities, a primary school, nursery, market square and community centre.
“Our vision is to deliver a new vibrant and sustainable community and place at Marleigh, centred around exceptional shared facilities and green spaces. We are pleased to be working with Hill Group once again on this second phase and are very much looking forward to starting work on site.” RICHARD HOWE MBE , MANAGING DIRECTOR, MARSHALL GROUP PROPERTIES
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Reimagining Barnet Estate This 1970s estate will be completely transformed, with 753 new homes, following a residents’ vote in favour of the regeneration.
New Partnerships in Motion This year we also joined forces with Home Group to bring forward plans for the regeneration of the Douglas Bader Park estate in Colindale, in the London Borough of Barnet. The current 1970s estate, built using structurally flawed concrete, will be transformed to create over 753 quality new homes. The new development will include a mix of tenure blind apartment blocks, maisonettes and houses. Designed to maximise the appeal of the adjoining green spaces, the newly transformed estate will be significantly improved, with attractive landscaping and a new central square. In 2019, residents of the estate voted overwhelmingly in favour of the regeneration. With planning now secured, they will look forward to being rehoused in high-quality homes sized to meet their family requirements.
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Joe Cook, executive director of development at Home Group, added:
“We consulted extensively and listened carefully, and we will work closely with our customers and continue to listen to them throughout the lifetime of the development, and in doing so, I know that we and our partners Hill, will provide an estate fit for purpose and one in which the community can take pride.”
Close To Home We will be starting work shortly on a development of mixed tenure homes in Attleborough, which will be within walking distance of all the town’s facilities.
Given the Go-Ahead Our plans for a new housing scheme at Attleborough in Norfolk were given the green light by Breckland District Council at the start of 2022. Our latest joint venture partnership with Latimer, the development arm of Clarion, will offer a mixture of private sale, shared ownership and affordable rent properties, with construction due to start in spring 2022. The new homes will be located within walking distance of the town centre and will form part of Attleborough Town Council’s support for a ’20-minute neighbourhood’ planning concept, which aims to reduce road traffic and keep shops and local amenities within easy walking distance.
“Working with Hill, we will deliver vital affordable housing options within walking distance of Attleborough town centre – boosting the local economy, keeping cars off the streets and helping to reduce the area’s carbon footprint.” Richard Cook, Group Director of Development, Clarion Housing Group
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Creating sustainable communities At Hill we put people and community first in all our developments. We are keenly aware of the urgent need for good quality, sustainable housing across the UK and to that end we partner with local authorities to help them address their specific housing delivery and regeneration goals. Hill Investment Partnerships was established to help councils deliver on their aims and objectives and our successful partnership model has been tested and proven with sustained repeat business. Councils are closely involved in the development of their own portfolio assets, investing in key sites and developing their regions, while we use our expertise to increase the pace of delivery of high quality housing while advising on strategy, disposal, construction and sales. Our partnerships also help to generate valuable revenue for councils to reinvest in public services, for long-term community use.
Social CIP has now completed over 150 new council homes in Cambridge.
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Akeman Street, Cambridge
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Working with local authorities allows us to collaborate in the delivery of community regeneration and provide affordable housing alongside private sale, rental and commercial developments. We do this in four different ways: y As a builder, creating much needed housing for local communities, building homes that are both beautiful and sustainable y As a purchaser and developer of land, as illustrated by our Woolwich Leisure Centre case study on the opposite page y As a joint venture partner, working in partnership with local authorities to maximise affordable housing and other local community provision facilities assets, including financial value to local authorities y As a strategic joint venture partner, working as a problem solver with local authorities in equal partnership to find solutions to strategic housing and regeneration objectives As a local authority strategic investment partner we: y Understand the strategic and political objectives y Drive solutions to meet the changing residential priorities of local communities y Deliver truly affordable new homes, not just for now but for future communities supporting sustainability y Prioritise sustainable construction, conserving water in both construction and design and minimising waste on site y Reinvest in local communities by working with local supply chains, providing local employment opportunities and apprentices y Focus on highly sustainable building design in line with the Government’s aspirations toward net zero carbon y Generate revenue and capital receipts for councils, more important than ever in straitened post-COVID times
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We currently have 2,500 homes in our Investment Partnerships pipeline, in association with Cambridge City Council, Rushmoor Borough Council and, most recently, South Cambridgeshire District Council.
Aylesbury Estate We have been working in partnership with Southwark Council since 2019 to deliver 581 new homes as part of the first two phases of the landmark Aylesbury Estate regeneration, which will eventually provide 3,500 new homes and become the largest estate regeneration in Europe. Aylesbury Estate’s first development site consists of affordable rent homes distributed over nine blocks from two to 18 storeys high. The scheme is being built using reinforced concrete structures and external walls of light steel, cement board, and brickwork. In Phase B, the construction of the scheme’s energy centre will be complete, and Phase A will be connected to the permanent district heating network. The energy centre will supply the heating and hot water demand of Phase A and B and all homes in these phases will use combined heat and power (CHP) technology. Through our partnership with Southwark, we have worked hard to ensure local people experience the social and economic benefits of regeneration, such as employment, education and training and improvements in health and wellbeing. The site has delivered a wide range of job and training opportunities with 41% local labour employed on Phase A as well as 19 apprentices. Recently, Burgess Sports requested we provide additional paved areas to the nearby café. Having consulted with the park café and gardeners, we are looking forward to completing this work in spring 2022. The works will increase the capacity of the facility, making it easier to maintain and more appealing to visitors.
Woolwich Leisure Centre In 2021, we were appointed as development partner on the Woolwich Leisure Centre scheme, working in partnership with the Royal Borough of Greenwich to deliver new homes in the heart of Woolwich. This wider development will also provide a new, state-of-the-art leisure centre for the council, developed by a third party. Hill is working in partnership with the council and the leisure centre contractor to deliver approximately 500 new homes, which will include a mix of private and affordable, with affordable rented homes for council tenants.
The development will also include shops, restaurants, public spaces and a new refurbishment for the Tramshed theatre and arts centre. An innovative neighbourhub will offer residents shared working spaces to accommodate remote working. Cllr Anthony Okereke, Cabinet Member for Housing said: “We selected Hill, a family-run business, as our development partner from a wide range of responses due to their excellent experience delivering high-quality homes for a range of councils and their strong sustainability credentials.”
Woolwich Partnership We will be delivering around 482 new mixed tenure homes as part of the Woolwich Leisure Centre scheme.
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Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP) In 2017 we set up the Cambridge Investment Partnership (CIP) with Cambridge City Council to address the region’s acute housing need and provide high quality, brand new council and market sale homes, along with commercial and community facilities. And we hit our original target, to build 500 new homes by 2022, a year early. To date, we have handed over 151 new council homes on ten sites, with a further six sites under construction.
Estate Update At Campkin Road in Cambridge we are replacing ageing council homes and garages with a modern new development.
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CIP: the year in review In January 2021, we started work on CIP’s newest development, Campkin Road, to replace ageing post-war council homes and garages with new council houses, apartments and a new community centre. In March, we demolished existing maisonettes at Ventress Close to provide new energy-efficient council homes, including apartments and houses. June was a busy month for us as we completed new council homes at Akeman Street, replacing an existing building with new flats and maisonettes. Retail units and a community centre are also under construction and will be completed shortly. Also in June, we submitted a planning application to build new council rented homes and commercial units at Colville Road, along with plans to expand the commercial units and enhance the landscape.
Settling In
And finally in June, we celebrated the progress of construction at our flagship, and largest development, Cromwell Road with a traditional topping out ceremony. Ward councillors and board members of Cambridge Investment Partnership were present to officially infill the final bit of concrete to mark reaching the highest point of the development. In August we started construction work at The Meadow and Buchan Street sites to replace two existing community facilities with a modern, sustainable community hub, new council rented apartments, open space and a public plaza. Working closely with local communities is one of our strengths and, after extensive consultation with residents, a different architect was appointed for The Meadows to design a new strategy in line with their feedback.
Homes at Ironworks, one of the largest of our CIP developments, are now occupied.
We started the process of creating the first Passivhaus council home projects in 2021, to provide low carbon new council homes at Fen Road, Borrowdale and Ditton Fields. This is part of a pilot project to learn about Passivhaus on smaller developments before scaling up our low carbon housing. Planning permission has already been granted for work to begin at Fen Road. And 2022 is off to a great start already as work has begun on the Orchard Park development to construct new homes, including new council homes for the city. Key To Success
November saw local families move into new council homes at Mill Road, with the nearby Ironworks development providing new studios, apartments and houses through private sale and council rented homes. The first new council homes were also handed over at Timberworks on the Cromwell Road development.
Councillor Mike Todd-Jones at the handover of the first council homes at our Timberworks development.
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Building sustainable spaces for communities
Addressing fuel poverty for our residents
As always, sustainability and efficiency are watchwords in the construction of all our developments, which are now gas-free ahead of Government targets. Our homes either meet or exceed current sustainability policies, reducing CO2 emissions and residents’ heating costs, helping to address fuel poverty issues. Many developments also have biodiverse green roofs, electric car charging ports and space to park bicycles.
Our Colville Road Phase Two development in Cambridgeshire will replace two blocks of ageing, post-war council homes with new sustainable council homes. Originally designed to provide heating and hot water through a gas-fired combined heat and power engine, CIP revised the energy strategy to make the development gas-free and provide heating and hot water via a communal air source heat pump system and a combination of photovoltaic and solar thermal panels located on the roof.
Social amenities are key in creating pleasant environments for our residents and we pay great attention to providing landscaping and green spaces and, in our bigger developments, play areas, shops and social hubs, such as nurseries and community centres. In total, the partnership has created five community centres across four different wards and planted more than 200 additional trees. In addition, more than £7 million worth of S106 money has been committed to local schools, parks, sports centres, NHS and The Chisholm Trail. Access and accessibility are also important to us. Many of our new homes are wheelchair accessible, some are specially adapted for wheelchair users and others are designated homes for people who had previously been vulnerably housed or homeless.
“With homes in Cambridge accounting for 31% of the total carbon emissions from the city, we are committed to improving the energy efficiency of existing council homes as well as building 1000 sustainable new council homes.”
We have also further enhanced the homes at Colville Road to include a range of fabric improvements to reduce heat and energy loss, leading to a reduction in the overall building energy demand. These improvements include fully insulated wider external wall cavities, enhanced specification insulation in floors and roofs, and triple-glazed windows throughout. Wastewater heat recovery is also being used to transfer heat discharged from waste shower water into the incoming cold water supply, which will lead to less energy being used to provide hot water to the mixer. Solar thermal panels are being incorporated to pre-heat the primary heating loop, allowing the air source heat pump system to operate at a lower intensity and save more power. Externally the homes at Colville Road will also benefit from sedum green roofs and extensive soft landscaping, which will allow surface water to infiltrate, ensuring there is no off-site surface water discharge. Electrical vehicle charging points are being installed to promote clean travel and reduce air pollution. We are also providing ample bicycle storage to encourage residents to use sustainable modes of transport.
Cllr Mike Todd-Jones, Executive Councillor for Housing at Cambridge City Council and CIP board member
Environment CIP are meeting or exceeding local sustainability policies with gas free developments.
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Promoting Art Local artists created eye catching murals which are featured on our hoardings at Orchard Park.
“We always go the long way around so the children can see what’s new each time we pass.” Projects for people Creating local community projects is an essential part of what we do, not only to provide places for people to live but to create environments they want to live in. Enabling creativity and expression has been a key focus of our community projects, bringing experts together with local residents in many inspiring ways. Children from the Akeman Street Children’s Art Club spent several months creating artworks and writing diaries to document their experiences through the COVID pandemic for a time capsule that has been buried in the partnership’s Akeman Street development. And the whole community came together to create inspirational murals for the hoardings at the Orchard Park site, with materials supplied by the partnership. The designs brightened up the whole community, with lots of great feedback from passers-by: “Thank you for making this little bit of the world more beautiful.”
A number of professional artists working on our developments took part in Open Cambridge in 2021, part of the national Heritage Open Days scheme, which is designed to offer special access to places that are normally closed to the public or charge admission. Events were hosted by artists working in The Meadows, Colville Road, Campkin Road and Cromwell Road developments.
Back To The Future Children created a time capsule of their pandemic experiences so that future generations will know what was happening when our Akeman Street development was being built.
We continue to support public art installations through Resonance Cambridge, the extensive public art programme we have commissioned across our developments, including creative bench designs by artist Sarah Sabin at our Anstey Way development, which joins the stunning tile art backdrops at the entrance to each block.
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Archaeological Prize Children learned about archaeology from a professional and witnessed a live dig.
It’s not all about art of course. Hooper Street and Ainsworth Street residents were involved in a Blue Plaque project with a community historian, displaying blue plaques in their windows to commemorate former local people, telling lesser-known stories of the area’s past. The partnership invited Cambridge United footballers to work with local children and host a keepie uppie contest, marking the start of work to turn the existing pitch at St Albans Rec into a modern Sport England approved football pitch. The work to clear the pitch also offered children from local primary schools a chance to witness a live archaeological dig on the site, hosted by a professional archaeologist.
Keeping Up Spirits Cambridge United footballers took on local children in a keepie uppie competition.
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Recognition for CIP In 2021 we were awarded The Best Development Team (South) at the Inside Housing Development Awards. The highly acclaimed industry awards recognise innovation and excellence in development and celebrate the very best in residential development over the past two years. The Best Development Team is awarded to the team that demonstrates outstanding achievement in delivering high quality new homes and places that meet the needs of residents. Cllr Mike Todd-Jones, Executive Councillor for Housing at Cambridge City Council and CIP board member said: “We are absolutely delighted to win this prestigious award. This is the first time we have entered these awards so it’s wonderful to have our hard work and commitment to delivering much needed high-quality council homes in Cambridge recognised by the industry.”
Rushmoor Development Partnership (RDP) It was an important year for the Rushmoor Development Partnership (RDP), our strategic joint venture with Rushmoor Borough Council, established in 2018. The partnership began work on two major urban regeneration projects that will provide commercial and community facilities and over 1,000 homes. Farnborough’s Civic Quarter In Farnborough, our plan for a new Civic Quarter will create a new heart for the town, including over 1,000 new homes designed for different housing needs, a new multi-use central park, and the relocation of the existing skate park. A new leisure centre will be located alongside the new civic building, home to Rushmoor Borough Council, the relocated library and new community facilities.
The Civic Quarter will also have new shops and restaurants, activating the frontages around the central park and creating new night time activity and footfall to the town centre. Proposals for a new food store, nursery and NHS facilities are also planned as part of the proposals. The proposals will include two new sustainable travel mobility hubs providing parking for the town centre’s fast vehicle charging points, cycle and scooter hire, storage facilities, information points and cafés. The hub will also provide a long-term revenue stream for the Council. Due to the importance of the development, it was necessary to carry out a significant level of public consultation and meetings with local community groups. Extensive public engagement took place in three phases, with initial vision workshops taking place in prior years. Another consultation was held in March 2021 to build on the feedback received from the previous
A vision for Farnborough’s Civic Quarter
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engagement. This was fully virtual in light of the COVID pandemic. Further hybrid consultations took place to seek feedback on the emerging masterplan for the site in September 2021. The outline planning application was recently submitted, with work now starting on the reserved matters applications for the first phase of delivery.
Aldershot’s town centre Construction has already started in Aldershot on the £40 million-plus project that is set to transform the heart of the town centre and provide flexible modern retail, commercial and community space, alongside new homes for local people and student accommodation.
Since its inception, the Rushmoor Development Partnership has worked collaboratively on all aspects of development, bringing together strengths and skills from the two partner organisations to facilitate two major town centre regeneration projects.
With the service personnel leaving the barrack areas around Aldershot, the town centre needed new footfall generation. Union Yard is a key island site located between Union Street and the High Street, and the development provides a new east/west connection between these two streets in the town centre.
Here we have assisted our partners with the management of the planning process for the masterplan applications, as well as advising on related build costs, a key element in making both Aldershot and Farnborough successful regeneration schemes.
The mix of residential and student occupiers will generate new footfall to the town centre, with the ground floor allocated for flexible retail space, which can be let as small individual units or as a larger mini food store premises.
Together, we have produced feasibility and financial appraisals, managed an extensive consultation, and kept council members updated and briefed throughout the development of the masterplans. Crucially, our work here in partnership is to secure long-term income solutions for Rushmoor Borough Council, while providing the local communities with high quality, non-residential spaces and exceptional places to enjoy for years to come.
A key focus will be the Makers Yard in the heart of the development, providing short term/short let pop-up space for small and independent businesses and students. This will provide a new vibrant creative space alongside the new public square between Union Street and the High Street. The scheme is due to be completed by summer 2024.
Getting Ready This site in central Aldershot will accommodate residential and retail units.
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Having Their Say The public were invited to see the plans for development at Cambourne Business Park and provide feedback.
South Cambridgeshire Investment Partnership (SCIP) In 2020 we launched the South Cambridgeshire Investment Partnership (SCIP), a 50:50 joint venture with South Cambridgeshire District Council, to source and acquire new land opportunities for the development of high quality, sustainable housing and commercial spaces. In 2021, after in-depth consultation with the local community, the partnership purchased 19.2 acres of brownfield land on the Cambourne Business Park. The park is set in 55 acres of picturesque countryside, nine miles west of Cambridge, and the site is expected to deliver around 275 new homes, 40% of which will be affordable housing. Ambitious project for local area The proposed homes range in size from onebedroom apartments to five-bedroom family homes and plans for the site include new green open spaces, a children’s play area and walking, cycling and public transport links, as well as an enhanced public square close by. The development will be entirely gas free, with air source heat pumps fitted in every home, alongside highly water efficient technology to reduce consumption. Working collaboratively with Cambourne Town Council, the development will
also achieve a 20% biodiversity net gain, despite already having a high ecological baseline, through improvements we make to the country park. Not only does the development signify a direct and long-term investment into the local community, creating much-needed new homes, it will also support local jobs, apprentices and supply chains. And it’s a brand new model for the industry – building a successful development and investment pipeline without a landbank to draw on. SCIP: where to next? Over the next four years, the Council is actively seeking to invest in the acquisition and sustainable development of land in South Cambridgeshire and the wider travel to work area, as determined by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Economic Review (CPIER). These developments will deliver long-term socio-economic benefits to the local community, as well as investment and income generating opportunities for the Council. The broad range of potential developments include affordable homes, private for sale homes, PRS housing, senior and assisted living, estate regeneration and mixed-use.
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Exceptional homes for sustainable communities
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Since our inception 22 years ago, Hill has evolved into a mature and diverse business with an ever-expanding operational area, building a wide range of homes focused on sustainable communities and low carbon development. We bring added value as a partner or contractor to business relationships across many sectors, including housing associations, local authorities and other residential providers, with a broad skill set in delivering sustainable homes and the spaces, landscapes and amenities that facilitate happy, healthy communities. We’re proud of our collaborative approach to development, working closely with our partners – as a trusted advisor, designer and contractor – to deliver new, inspiring communities.
“A collaborative, inclusive approach to engagement and partnership working is an intrinsic component of the way we work. Listening to our partners, and sharing our expertise, ensures we are able to provide high quality homes and places which are designed and created to serve their communities.” ANDY HILL , GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE , MCIOB
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“Newman Place not only brings much needed affordable new homes for people on the city’s waiting list but gives many first-time buyers, including NHS workers to whom we have given priority purchase options, the chance to get on the property ladder in an area where they would normally be priced out.” Joe Marshall, Managing Director, New Homes (Counties) at Catalyst
Newman Place, Oxford Towards the end of last year, we handed over the first apartment building at the landmark Newman Place development in Oxford to our housing association partner Catalyst who are working alongside Oxford City Council. Named after Saint John Henry Newman, and constructed on the former site of the 19th century Littlemore Park hospital, the development is located less than four miles from Oxford City Centre. Fittingly, given its history, it supports frontline health workers and priority purchase options will be given to NHS key workers.
We are also creating and landscaping footpaths, cycleways and seating areas alongside Littlemore Brook, connecting with the science park and restoring an area of copse. This will be a wonderful public amenity for both residents and the wider community to enjoy. The development will also have a play area made from natural materials, two hibernacula for local wildlife and community allotments.
Littlemore Park will eventually deliver a total of 270 new homes and has been designed as a 100% affordable development, to be completed in summer 2023. The development is truly landscape-led, sustainable and biodiverse in design and respects, reflects and enriches the area’s heritage. Its design blends old and new, with bricks and local stone chosen to complement the neighbouring Grade 2 listed Georgian manor. Public art commissions on the site will pay tribute to its healthcare history, while the campus-style layout reflects Oxford’s academic heritage and the adjoining Oxford Science Park.
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Hospital Heritage Littlemore Park is built on the site of a former hospital in Oxford and health workers will be given priority in purchasing affordable homes there.
Knights Walk, Lambeth Knights Walk in Kennington is our second contract for Homes for Lambeth (HFL). It was completed in August 2021 and was awarded the Secured by Design (SBD) Gold Award, the first of its kind for us. SBD Awards are given to UK developers for incorporating crime prevention measures and techniques into the design of their sites. The award was issued in recognition of our achievement in tackling crime prevention at Eliza Cook House on the Knights Walk estate, acknowledging the measures taken to reduce the opportunity for crime and anti-social behaviour through improved layout, environmental design and the use of police preferred specification products. Homes for Lambeth and Hill worked closely with the SBD officer to ensure involvement within the early stages of planning and were praised by SBD for our compliance and help in enabling the development to be designed to SBD requirements. An anti-climb device to the rear balconies and the new homes provides extra security between floors.
Safe And Secure Knights Walk in Lambeth has been designed to offer high levels of security through its design and layout.
Sixteen new homes were delivered on the estate, converting former garages into a modern and sustainable five storey building. The extra space surrounding the new apartments has been transformed into a garden and planting area for residents. The new homes mark the completion of Phase 1 of the wider rebuilding of the estate. The homes reduce carbon emissions by at least 35% and guarantee safe and affordable living spaces for residents.
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Polly’s Field, Essex Polly’s Field is a beautiful 99 home retirement village constructed for Abbeyfield on the outskirts of Braintree, Essex. Starting on site in late 2019, this negotiated project was built during the height of the COVID pandemic and delivered to schedule in 2021. As a design and build contract, we worked with the architects, planners, residents and other stakeholders to deliver this stunning development, value engineering the designs to work within the financial expectations of our client, while never compromising on quality. Due to the vulnerable nature of those who call Polly’s Field home, providing soft landings was crucial. Our team ensured all staff were inducted to the new development, and assisted residents in moving in.
Polly’s Field A meeting place and café is central to life at this retirement village.
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Walrond House, Newington Gate Walrond House, Newington Gate, our successful joint venture partnership with Anchor, who provide specialist housing and care for people in later life, won Best Regeneration Project (Urban) at the 2021 Inside Housing Development Awards. The development was completed and handed over in 2020, having been sensitively designed to reflect Hackney’s historical past as well as the tranquil atmosphere of the nearby village green.
Bullwood Gardens, Beech Grove Bullwood Gardens is a stunning 72-home development, built on the site of Bullwood Hall Prison, for Beech Grove, the development arm of Sanctuary housing association. The exquisitely designed development of two, three, four and five-bedroom homes surrounded by mature woodland is a flagship development for Beech Grove. Our experience in housebuilding was crucial to being awarded the contract for Bullwood Gardens, with our expertise in sales and design specification instrumental in the process. During development, we embraced the local community through our work with local schools, undertaking a classroom refurbishment project at Sweyne Park School, helping to improve the acoustics for students who are hard of hearing. We recently took three students from the school onto our Management Trainee Programme, where they are now enjoying the beginnings of a fruitful career in construction.
Bullwood Gardens was completed in 2021 and in Summer 2022, we plan to embark on a community benefit project with the school to construct a mental health “sanctuary” room for the students to use for wellbeing consultations.
Prospect Ring, East Finchley Prospect Ring is a dynamic, high-quality building, providing much needed housing in Barnet, which was completed in June 2021, in partnership with Opendoor Homes, part of Barnet Council. This negotiated development was our second project for the council, highlighting their trust in us as a trusted delivery partner. As part of the project, the existing landscape was enhanced by consolidating amenity spaces into meaningful clusters for residents to enjoy.
A month after completion, we hosted a barbecue for residents at the development to help them settle in and bring the community together. During the year we also helped a local school create a wellbeing garden, assisting with fencing, footpaths and landscaping. We have also donated a number of laptops to another nearby school.
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Channels, Essex
Channels, Essex
Copley Close Estate, Ealing
Having completed phases one and two for Persona Homes, the development arm of leading housing association, Home Group, we were delighted to negotiate the third phase of this standout development on a site in Chelmsford.
Copley Close, developed for Broadway Living, the development arm of Ealing Council, successfully provided 201 mixed-tenure homes, plus shop, café, and a management office on Copley Square. The development included a Brompton bike hire dock allowing residents easy access to a healthy, green mode of inner-city transport.
Our previous experience as a 5* homebuilder was crucial to the continued partnership, with Persona particularly keen to benefit from optimised sales rates and detailed build sequencing. Channels was one of the first Persona developments to come to market and internal specifications were important to them. We presented our own high quality residential Gold and Silver specifications which Persona adopted across the scheme. Channels later won a silver WhatHouse? Award for Best House.
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Copley Close, which was completed well ahead of programme, despite the challenges of the global pandemic, was another key success in our ongoing successful relationship with the Council as a trusted delivery partner. In 2021, the development was awarded Best Starter Home Scheme at the WhatHouse? Awards 2021. Gerry McCormack, Project Director at Copley Close said “Having been in the housebuilding industry for 45 years, this is my first time to lead a project where we appointed Hill. I could not be more pleased with how the project has progressed. A three year project will be handed over on time and to budget by a hugely professional project team. This has been achieved during a pandemic and with material shortages. Hill were always proactive in bringing solutions to the table, and with them we purchased materials in advance, at key stages, which proved a masterstroke."
Earlham Grove, East London In 2021, we completed both phases of Earlham Grove, another successful development for Gateway Housing Association which includes a combination of social rent and shared ownership homes, car parking, landscaped communal gardens and cycle bays. Set within the Forest Gate town centre Conservation Area, Earlham Grove provided 150 affordable homes across the two phases.
This was a significant development for Gateway, which was completed seven weeks ahead of schedule and was nominated for a Pride in the job award by the NHBC Inspector. During development, we supported the local economy through jobs and training opportunities, with a 45% local labour rate across both phases. We also employed 17 apprenticeship level tradesman during construction.
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Appian Court, Bow
Appian Court, Bow Completed in 2021, Appian Court brought 60 London affordable rent and shared ownership homes to Bow, east London. This negotiated development, delivered for Gateway Housing Association, represents the continuation of our successful relationship, having previously partnered on the 78-home Earlham Grove. With support from the University of Stirling’s Dementia Development Services Centre, the homes were designed using principles that support ageing residents, enabling them to live more independently in their homes and communities. Our detailed, technical understanding was key to bringing the overall concept to life for the client. Becky Utuka, Director of Developments and Sales at Gateway Housing Association, said: “It was great to see the buy-in shown by the project team to include the design concepts and achieve a high quality build. The feedback from residents living there has been positive and I would be proud to live there.”
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John Coxall Court, Letchworth, Hertfordshire John Coxall Court, delivered for Howard Cottage Housing Association, provides a range of two-bedroom apartments for the over 55s, along with communal facilities such as a lounge, hair salon and buggy store. The site had previously housed a 1970s sheltered housing block and the new development will almost double the number of affordable homes for over 55s in what will be the housing association’s largest development in 40 years.
John Coxall Court, Letchworth
Agar Grove Estate Phase 1b, Camden The multi-award winning Agar Grove is the largest Passivhaus development in the UK and part of Camden Council’s campaign to improve the borough’s housing stock and address fuel poverty. We are proud to have successfully delivered phases, 1a and 1b, and are currently on site delivering phase 1c. We're now utilising our considerable Passivhaus experience to develop, alongside the Council, phase 2, consisting of a further 200 Passivhaus homes. Phases 1a and 1b are tenure-blind, providing a mix of energy-efficient apartments, maisonettes and split level homes for new and existing tenants. Technical projects such as Agar Grove require particular skillsets and our success in delivering phase 1b was an instrumental factor in our selection for phase 1c. We were delighted to retain the existing skilled supply chain for the third phase of this impressive development.
Home Is Where The Heart Is
Agar Grove We completed phase 1b of this multi-award winning development for Camden Council in 2021.
Agar Grove has won several important awards since we started in 2015, including a Housing Design Award, Overall Winner and the Sustainability Prize at the New London Awards, The Mayor’s Award for Good Growth at the London Planning Awards, Residential Project of the Year at the CIBSE Building Performance Awards, and Best Large Development at the Passivhaus Awards.
Our Western region was delighted to welcome our partners at Hightown Housing Association to a groundbreaking at the Heart of Maylands development.
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Eddington, Cambridge
Environments built for life, work and play At Hill, we don’t just construct buildings, we create inspiring environments for people to live, work and play in. It’s not only about successful design and construction, it’s about creating a sense of place to foster harmonious lifestyles.
At Hill, we don’t provide identikit buildings for identikit communities, every home and development we create has its own unique identity matched to the social, cultural and environmental needs of its location.
We want to give our residents a sense of connection to the places they live in, as well as supplying all the practical amenities to make their lives easier, whether that’s a nursery, supermarket, open green space or links to vital services, such as transport.
We believe that a strong sense of place can impact the physical, social, emotional and ecological wellbeing of people and their localities, and we work closely with communities and commercial partners to achieve this.
Jack Hobhouse on behalf of AECOM
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Marleigh, Cambridge
Continuing the Marleigh Success Story Construction has started on the second phase of our landmark Marleigh development in Cambridge, a partnership with The Marshall Group of Cambridge. This will deliver an additional 421 mixed-tenure homes alongside a variety of new public spaces. In addition to the 547 homes currently being built in phase one of the development, this year a new primary school, nursery, and shop will be opened, providing residents with key amenities. With placemaking at its very heart, the development will have landscaped green spaces throughout, playgrounds, walking routes, allotments where residents can grow flowers and vegetables, public art installations, electric car charging ports and paths and storage for bicycles to help the community live more sustainably.
Artistic Flourish Local artists have been invited to contribute to the Marleigh environment by creating public art throughout the development.
The new Marleigh community is carefully designed to fit seamlessly as an extension to Cambridge, just three miles east of the city centre, while retaining its own unique identity. Every home will feature a range of energy saving and carbon reduction features, including fabric first designs, air source heat pumps and photovoltaic panels on roofs. “Hill don’t just build houses; they’re building homes and communities and we’re really excited to see what this development will be like in five years’ time. It has a lovely community feel already and there will soon be shops, bars and other facilities for us to use too, as well as cycle paths which we have already begun exploring.” Sam, Marleigh resident
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Farmers market, Marleigh
Marleigh’s Market Square will be the hub of the community, featuring a series of landscaped and public spaces, The central square, with its coffee shops and meet-up locations, will be a buzzing social hub for residents and visitors. The square will also play host to a number of events, including a regular farmers market with local and seasonal produce. September 2022 will see the opening of a 52-place nursery and two-form primary school. Plans are also underway for a café and a commercial unit with over 4,300 square feet of space. Monkey Puzzle Nursery will cater for children up to five, with an ethos based on a fun, friendly and kind environment with lots of outdoor play. Marleigh Primary Academy will offer its pupils plentiful access to the outdoors, with extensive sports and outdoor learning facilities, including a multi-sports all-weather pitch, green spaces, a vegetable garden, and a woodland area. Indoors, teaching has a focus on science, technology, engineering and maths – reflecting Cambridge’s excellence in these areas. The school will also open
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“We are delighted that we will be opening at this fantastic new Marleigh neighbourhood. With spacious family homes, plenty of green space, an attractive central square, and a new school underway, this is a familyfriendly development in every sense of the word, and we are looking forward to becoming part of the new community.” Thulisile Tshalibe-Catley, Monkey Puzzle
Cheers Marleigh’s Market Square welcomed what will be the first of many farmers markets.
Singing From The Same Page
its doors to the local community by making its facilities available for use. Prue Rayner, Director of Primary Education at Anglian Leaning, said: “We look forward to working collaboratively with other community organisations to create a new, vibrant and successful community.” A new Co-op store is located conveniently opposite the school, and its resident membership programme will offer shoppers additional value for money. It will also be donating through the programme to local causes.
“We are delighted to be part of this new district and look forward to the opportunity to serve the community. Co-op is committed to operating at the heart of local life and making a difference in the community.”
Pupils from local schools gathered to sing Christmas Carols outside our sales and marketing suite at Marleigh.
Events for the Community In April 2021, in collaboration with Farmers Fayres, we hosted our first farmers market at the development, offering residents a curated range of artisanal food and drink products from goat’s cheese to seasonal game, soft drinks, and smoked fish. In December, Marleigh played host to a Christmas Carol event with children from Bottisham Primary and Teversham Primary School. The festive event was well-attended, with crowds of residents and people from the nearby area joining us on the lawn outside the marketing suite to sing carols with the schoolchildren.
Martyn Clarke, Co-op Regional Acquisition Manager
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Eddington: A Model of Sustainability Eddington is a place in its own right, with all the elements needed for a community to thrive, including a hotel, school, nursery, shops, market square, community centre, sports facilities and over 50 hectares of open space for people to enjoy, meet each other and make connections. Designed to exemplary standards of sustainability, Eddington will support a healthy, active and environmentally conscious community. It acts as a model for sustainable development and placemaking all over the country. It has been carefully planned to enable residents to minimise their environmental impact, with an abundance of pedestrian and cycle routes, a public transport network, green infrastructure and energy efficiency. Eddington also enhances the city and helps the University of Cambridge continue to develop, grow and maintain its worldleading status, by providing high quality homes for key workers, students and the public in a vibrant place to live.
On The Doorstep Brook Leys is set in 60 acres of natural landscape on the edge of the development.
With over 50 hectares of open space, including parks and playing fields, playgrounds and meadows, Eddington blends modern city living with the outdoors and a natural way of life. Storey’s Field, a central recreation space, offers parkland for walks and games. The lakes and lagoons at nearby Brook Leys, part of almost 60 acres of natural landscape along Eddington’s edge, bring the countryside to the edge of the development, including extensive habitat for wildlife.
Building Near Future Nearby Brook Leys boasts 60 acres of natural landscape along Eddington’s edge, with sculpture lakes and lagoons.
At Home With Nature Eddington has been designed as an active, environmentally conscious community.
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Private Space As well as being able to enjoy the wider environment, all Knights Park residents have their own private space.
Sustainable Knights Park Set within a network of tree-lined streets, and anchored by a car-free landscaped avenue that connects cycle and pedestrian routes to nearby local amenities, Knights Park is designed for eco-conscious homeowners wanting to invest in a more sustainable future. Surrounded by 123 acres of green open space, this innovative zero-carbon neighbourhood is an exemplar of sustainable architecture and urban design, with new homes successfully appealing to a wide group of buyers, not just early adopters of sustainable living. It is part of Cambridge’s new district of Eddington, created by the University of Cambridge and named after its alumnus and renowned astronomer, mathematician and physicist Sir Arthur Eddington, to deliver a new city neighbourhood and become a sustainable community offering a high quality of life. The collection of homes has been thoughtfully created to minimise residents’ carbon footprint. All homes have sustainability built in, from robust installation and triple glazing to photovoltaic panels and mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems. They all feature generous spaces, high ceilings and large windows to maximise solar gain and natural light, and all have private outdoor space. The properties have been built to the high
standards required for Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5 and Lifetime Homes Standard. Knights Park is also the first ever completed Housing Design Award entry to be recognised by Building with Nature for providing an outstanding habitat to support biodiversity. Approximately 2,000 trees, plants and brambles have been planted in phase one to encourage local flora and fauna, and a variety of roosting boxes have been erected to encourage swifts, house sparrows, starlings and bats to nest.
Being Judged Judges visited Knights Park and deemed it to be a winner in the Housing Design Awards.
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13. Placemaking Cont. Light And Airy Inspired by the concept of loft living, Rubicon’s interiors offer light filled spaces.
Rubicon: Designed for Contemporary Lifestyles As part of the award-winning Knights Park development in the vibrant community of Eddington, Cambridge, Rubicon is designed for the way we live now, where the lines between home and work spaces are becoming increasingly blurred. With its unique architectural design, Rubicon offers a range of apartments and expertly designed work spaces, including enclosed private areas and larger open spaces to facilitate collaborative working. Sales at the multi-building complex launched in 2021. Inspired by the concept of loft living, Rubicon’s distinctive roofs, shimmering bricks in beautifully coloured hues and dramatic window designs make this an eye-catching and unique place to live, where residents can enjoy both their private spaces and communal areas to foster the spirit of collaboration.
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Landscaped green spaces with trees and hedgerows run between the building to provide a close link to nature and also offer social spaces and playgrounds to be enjoyed by the community. These spaces have been thoughtfully planned to echo nature and create moments of delight around each corner. Together, they form a tranquil green setting, only a short walk from the lively centre of Eddington with its shops, café, school, community centre, hotel, bar and restaurant.
21st Century Living Eddington’s local amenities include a lively market square with shops and cafés.
There are a series of co-working spaces designed for different needs: a mix of private work spaces and areas for collaboration. Contemporary and functional furniture, lush planting and lighting have all been carefully considered in the design of these spaces, creating areas that are comfortable to work in, and offer sociability and stimulation. The homes at Rubicon offer the same exceptionally high levels of energy efficiency as the surrounding Knights Park development, with all the amenities of the area, from sports and leisure facilities to the community centre – on the doorstep. There are large bicycle storage facilities in the basement, along with bike storage in the apartments and racks in the porticoes.
“Our vision merges pioneering design with timeless craftsmanship to create a diversity of streetscapes and homes. Providing unique and unexpected contrasts between generous public spaces, lush greenery and vibrant street networks, Knights Park sets a new precedent for Cambridge living.” ALISON BROOKS, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ALISON BROOKS ARCHITECTS
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Oxford North: A Place to Work, Live, Learn and Socialise In April 2021, we were appointed as development partner by Thomas White Oxford, the development company of St John’s College, to build homes at Canalside, a nine acre site on the western side of the upcoming Oxford North project. We were later appointed to deliver the infrastructure works for the whole 64 acre development. Oxford North is a new global innovation district being built on land to the north of the city. This new place starts with people, their ideas and ambitions. It’s being built to celebrate and enable them, providing a place for people who want to make their mark on the world. It’s why Oxford North will connect academia and commerce, invention and investment, providing a sustainable place to work, live, learn and socialise. Always a catalyst for innovation and growth, Oxford North will be a thriving and vibrant new district with innovation and sustainability at its heart. It will be a unique home and workplace for scientists, technologists, and inventors, transforming lives and enhancing one of the world’s greatest cities.
The project will deliver one million square feet of new labs and workspaces, including a new innovation centre, new and affordable homes, a hotel, nursery, shops, bars and cafés and three public parks, along with significant investment into moving around sustainably. Immersive culture With access at every step to wide open public spaces, Oxford North will enhance wellbeing, with landscaping designed to stimulate and increase biodiversity across the public parks. Woven in are socialising spaces for entertainment, events and exercise. At every turn there is a vista or opportunity to enjoy, delight or change perspectives. Integral to this are areas for families and children to enjoy natural play, while opening eyes and discovering the future. A place for families to visit, play and explore, from children’s play parks to public art, places to eat to events, it promises to inspire play and discovery in our current and future generations.
Thriving and Vibrant Oxford North will be a new sustainable district where people will be able to live, learn, work and socialise.
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Plenty To Enjoy Oxford North residents, and visitors, will enjoy cultural and outdoor amenities.
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14. Regeneration
Community Involvement Greg Hill at a public consultation event working with the community at Teviot.
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Transforming communities Our approach to regeneration is resident-led and ensures that the developments we create in existing neighbourhoods benefit the entire local community. First and foremost, these developments deliver on the needs of existing residents whose communities are transformed in a positive and sustainable way. We engage with residents through the whole process, from early-stage consultations to ongoing programmes. Through the consultation, planning and building phases, we provide them with platforms for discussion, collaboration and, because we can, fun. We take a resident-led approach, weaving their needs into projects from the earliest stage, alongside those of community organisations and other local stakeholders, to deliver developments that stand the test of time. We believe in creating beautiful, sustainable places to live, with improved housing, infrastructure, amenities, and green spaces. Not only that, we focus on securing employment and skills training opportunities for residents, where we bring tangible lasting benefits to the communities we work within.
Helping Hands In addition to building more than 134 new homes at High Path in South Wimbledon we are involved in a range of community activities, including painting this church wall.
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New Horizons Our first major project in Bristol is McArthur’s Yard, a mixed-use residential development, regenerating a vacant plot of land near the harbourside. The site was purchased by affordable housing provider, The Guinness Partnership, in June 2018 and offers a significant opportunity for regeneration as it represents one of only a handful of areas undeveloped in this unique part of the city. The development is being delivered by our South West region, which specialises in urban regeneration and estate renewal. The region is led by Regional Managing Director Andy Fancy, who has significant experience in delivering major regeneration schemes in the UK. In October, we were delighted to welcome the Bristol City Council's Cabinet Member for Housing Delivery and Homes, Councillor Tom Renhard, along with senior members of The Guinness Partnership, to mark the start on site of the first new homes at McArthur’s Yard.
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Bristol First McArthur’s Yard is our high profile harbourside development in Bristol, the first project in our newest region.
Other developments in the region include Baltic Wharf, which will be our first joint venture development with Goram Homes, Bristol City Council’s new home delivery vehicle. Subject to planning, this mixed-use development will consist of 166 sustainable homes, commercial units and cultural spaces on Bristol’s Spike Island. We are in advanced discussions with the planning authority to bring this site forward.
Start On Site Bristol City Council leaders and senior members of The Guinness Partnership joined us to celebrate the start of work at McArthur’s Yard.
Also in Bristol, we have been consulting with local businesses regarding the Park Furnishers site, south of Bristol City Centre. The project, which aims to redevelop a tired industrial site into a much-needed housing development, is a tripartite partnership between Bristol City Council, Galliard Apsley and Hill. Since acquiring the site in 2020, we have been working with our partners to bring forward a framework for a wider regeneration, with plans to create a new mixed-use development of homes, commercial space and public realm improvements. However, with the vital consultation work continuing, we explored and identified socially valuable meanwhile uses for the land which would deliver positive benefits to local people. In a bid to help support local artists working in the city, we partnered with local charity Gathering Voices, a highly innovative arts organisation working in the areas of music, mentoring and youth leadership projects, to give them exclusive use of the buildings at the former Park Furnishers site. The group has plans to open the site under the name Stillhouse Studios, a creative space for established and experienced artists, designers, and makers to create textile work and various film, photography and performing arts projects, along with creative educational sessions for all ages. With a creative outreach programme designed to bring life back to underused and vacant spaces in and off East Street, Gathering Voices will support children, young people and adults in music, mentoring, youth leadership and creative projects designed to empower and build community.
Doing The Leg Work A new partnership with recruitment specialist Leggwork will help us to recruit local people.
Recruitment Agency Does the Leggwork People are the key ingredient to the success of any business unit and, through our South West region, we have partnered with Leggwork, a construction recruitment specialist which now helps us locate and capitalise on the talent from within the area, resulting in benefits to the local community and its economy.
Where’s Hill Hero Children and residents were challenged to spot our Hill Hero who turned up all over our site at High Path.
Hannah Klewin, Director at Gathering Voices said: “We are delighted to be working with an empathetic developer like Hill to bring to life our most recent creative space where we’ll be able to offer more opportunities for communities in Bristol.”
Social A Bristol charity has been leased space to create an arts studio at one of our sites while we work through planning.
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14. Regeneration Cont. Getting To Know You The local community is at the heart of our plans for the Teviot Estate and we got to know each other better at a special summer festival.
Creating New Homes and Social Value at Tower Hamlets In late 2020, we were appointed to regenerate the Teviot Estate in London’s Tower Hamlets by Poplar HARCA and local residents. With a masterplan for the development of more than 1800 new homes, green spaces, religious centres, shops and community facilities currently underway, our key focus is to deliver real social value for the area. The consultation process was resident-led and in an 81% turnout 86% of residents backed proposals for regenerating the estate. We were selected over four other bidders by the residents’ steering group and advisors.
“Hill was found to be very knowledgeable with regard to the area, the issues Teviot currently faces and were full of practical ways to overcome them, both now and in the future.” Paul Mancrief, Resident Steering Group member and part of the community for over 45 years
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We were chosen for our experience and passion for community-led regeneration, our alignment with residents’ wishes and our vision for the Teviot regeneration. Poplar HARCA described our bid as a “best in class exemplar” for an urban regeneration that puts residents and stakeholders at its heart. Steve Stride, Chief Executive, Poplar HARCA said: “Hill provided an exceptional social value offer and illustrated a well thought through and realistic commercial bid, which balanced pragmatism with some exciting innovations and opportunities.” Our vision goes way beyond providing homes and pretty landscapes. Our comprehensive and inspirational social value package for the community includes employment and training opportunities, enhancement of community facilities and a contribution to existing services. Plus, our extensive infrastructure investment will better connect the Teviot Estate to surrounding areas and transport hubs. We want to create a safer, more inclusive community and our joint venture will create a community chest fund to give local organisations
the opportunity to bid for funding, unlocking socio-economic value. Our masterplanner, was appointed for the development in 2021 and our planning application to the local authority at Tower Hamlets is expected to be finalised in autumn 2022. Our social value package, which includes an exciting and legacy-driven programme of community activity, was rolled out in 2021 and lasts for the duration of this legacy development.
“The residents’ ambitions will be at the heart of the plans, and we will bolster these aspirations with our extensive experience in creating thriving new communities and successful placemaking. The regeneration will boost the local economy by creating a transformed destination for East London and contribute positive social value, bringing pride and vibrancy to the area for existing and future residents.”
We hosted a memorable summer festival, Our Teviot, with Poplar HARCA at the Teviot Centre. On stage local talent entertained audiences with music and dance routines, as well as karate and taekwondo demonstrations. Festival attendees also enjoyed face painting, a circus skills workshop, a bouncy castle, prize draw and a variety of food and drink offerings, as well as a very popular ice cream stall. An important part of the event was the regeneration hub, which gave residents the chance to learn more about the exciting regeneration plans. Colleagues from Hill, Poplar HARCA and our consultants talked through the proposals and showcased the career and training opportunities the project will provide for the local community.
Harmony At Teviot Our Teviot Festival feature music and dance performances from local artists.
Andy Hill, Group Chief Executive, MCIOB
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14. Regeneration Cont. Good Enough To Eat Pupils at a local school designed and made a gingerbread village, which was recreated in edible form by a local baker.
We gave 30 laptops to local schools, as well as £7,500 towards broadband, as part of the Connecting Communities scheme set up by Poplar HARCA, with East End Community Foundation & LETTA Schools Trust. The project works with schools in Tower Hamlets who identify students and families most in need of support and provides them with a laptop, 12-months free broadband, and digital training.
Digital Age We donated 30 laptops to schools in Poplar as part of a wider initiative to bring pupils into the digital learning age.
£10,000 was donated to the food pantry at Manorfield Primary School, partnering with Family Action who provide weekly food parcels for local people. At Christmas, our gingerbread competition in collaboration with Langdon Park School, gave local students the chance to show off their creativity by creating a magical Christmas village scene from cardboard. The winning designs were turned into a 3D gingerbread model village by award-winning bakery Hawkens Gingerbread and donated to local charity, Neighbours in Poplar, which supplies meals and support to elderly and homeless people in Teviot.
“As we start work on the long-term plans for the Teviot Estate, it is vital that we respond to the immediate needs of the community at grass roots level, as well as understanding their aspirations for the future.” Andy Fancy, Regional Managing Director
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Ham Close, Ham
High Path Estate, Wimbledon
Redeveloping Ham Close
Taking the High Path
In 2021, following an extensive two-stage tender process, we were pleased to announce our appointment by The Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP) as development partner in its landmark regeneration project in Ham, South West London. The redevelopment of Ham Close will involve the replacement of the outdated 1960s blocks of flats built on the estate with a range of high-quality new homes for existing residents, as well as additional new homes of various tenures. Following a vast consultation campaign, taking on board the views of many residents and stakeholders, our plans will be submitted for planning in April 2022.
Working alongside Clarion Housing Group, we are currently developing 134 homes at High Path Estate in South Wimbledon. As part of the regeneration plans, we are working with the local community on a range of social and educational projects, all part of our commitment to creating and sustaining communities.
Rob Cummins, Head of New Business and Regeneration at RHP said: “We were attracted to working with Hill due to their experience in successfully delivering complex regeneration projects and the quality of their homes. In addition, their submission to us showed real knowledge and respect for the architectural character of the area and their landscaping ideas reflect the green surroundings of Ham.” At Hill, partnerships are our strength and we look forward to not just providing improved homes and surroundings for existing and future residents in Richmond, but also creating a space that brings greater social value for the entire community.
To encourage training and work opportunities in the area, we invited five candidates from national training provider Vocational Skills Solutions (VSS) to visit High Path in advance of their Level 1 Health and Safety and CSCS tests. The group was given a full induction, site tour and the chance to carry out tasks and answer questions to help prepare for their tests. Three of the students who subsequently passed, started work experience on site to gain further hands-on skills and knowledge.
Site Insight Vocational skills students visited High Path to find out more about activities on a construction site.
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Education and employment are important social metrics and, since starting construction at High Path, we have helped many apprentices gain valuable experience of working on a live construction site. Through working with local agencies and job centres we have created countless jobs for local people. In the summer of 2021 we funded lifesaving first aid skills training for young people, hosted by Uptown Youth Club at the Leyton Road Centre, close to High Path, where 28 participants learned emergency first aid training basics. Also in the summer we donated £2,000 towards the Holiday Hunger Activity Fund for local residents, a government initiative that helps young people who receive free school meals to access four hours of activities per day, and a free meal, over the summer holidays. We also donated £1,000 to Merton Saints BMX Club to help fund free BMX sessions for local children who live close to High Path. Local children and residents had fun spotting our Hill Hero around the High Path development this year, where it turned up everywhere, from scaffolding to cranes. Bricklayer foreman Izet Matranxha was honoured with an award for his commitment to the quality of building work on High Path by external auditor Shaun Heath of Construction Site Inspection & Quality Assurance (CSI-QA). This is only the second time in 14 years that Shaun has presented a quality award to a contractor, an impressive accolade for Izet and the development.
Rewarding Quality Izet Matranxha excelled to win a highly coveted award for his work on High Path.
Pedal Power Merton Saints BMX Club received a donation to fund free sessions for children living near High Path.
WiC at High Path:
Meet Naomi
Following a career change in 2021, Naomi was introduced to WiC and secured an initial two-week placement at our High Path site in South Wimbledon. With the support of Senior Project Manager Liam Kelly, she extended her placement to nine months, working across commercial, technical and production divisions. During her placement, Naomi was introduced to subcontractors CSI-QA and was subsequently offered her first paid role in construction. The team also supported her in obtaining her MCIOB. Naomi said “I am grateful for the ongoing support of Women into Construction and to Hill for taking part in this scheme, because it has given professional women like me, who come from a non-construction background, a great opportunity to enter a truly interesting industry.” To date, the total value of social activity at High Path is in excess of £10.5m.
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A Taste Of Life In Construction In October we welcomed ten year 11 students from Ark Walworth Secondary School to Aylesbury FDS Phase A as part of the Construction Youth Trust. The event was intended to encourage young people into jobs in construction.
Supporting the Generations at Aylesbury Estate In partnership with Southwark Council, we are constructing the first development site of 830 new homes on the Aylesbury Estate, part of a landmark regeneration project that will deliver over 3,500 mixed tenure homes as well as retail, healthcare and community space. In 2021, as part of our commitment to the area, our apprentices helped transform a charitable community café opposite the estate. Working with Burgess Sports, an organisation that helps feed and run activities for children and families from the surrounding area, our apprentices repaired, painted and upgraded the premises, making it a more pleasant facility for the local community to enjoy. We also ran a youth design project at the estate with Notting Hill Genesis, where local children were tasked with creating three brick designs for the estate during four online workshops. The final
designs are to be incorporated into one of the development’s new buildings. In September, we were co-sponsors of the Africa Day celebration held at Walworth’s St Peter’s Church. The event was held in celebration of the diversity of Aylesbury, Walworth and the surrounding communities. Festival goers enjoyed free art activities, cultural performances and Caribbean and African food stalls.
Brick Art Ornamental bricks designed by local youngsters will be incorporated into the facade of one of the new buildings at the Aylesbury Estate.
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15. Land
Finchingfield, Essex
Strategic land purchases across the country With our specialised teams of land buyers, we have the ability to take ownership of the development process at an early stage, providing sustainable homes and community facilities in the most suitable locations. As a family-owned housebuilder, we can act quickly to secure land for development, be it for a small or medium sized housing scheme or a high density mixed tenure development. Our land buying team has unrivalled knowledge of their operational areas and an established network of contacts. Our customers trust us to deliver, and we have an impressive track record of working with local authorities and communities to progress inspiring developments successfully for all stakeholders.
Land Purchased in 2021 Our strategic land team was busy in 2021, with six land purchases that included Westley Green in Cambridgeshire, a 50/50 collaboration with L&Q Estates for a new sustainable settlement capable of providing up to 8,500 homes in total. We secured an agreement for a significant plot of land for 350 homes in Thornbury, South Gloucestershire, and another parcel of 300 homes in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, which represents a long-term option on the land as well as potential development for commercial, retail and residential uses. We secured land on the north side of Ockendon, Essex, where we will draw up plans to deliver around 500 homes. We have also purchased a number of freeholds, including a parcel of land identified in the Neighbourhood Plan with potential for 30 homes in the village of Much Hadham, close to Bishops Stortford on the Herts/Essex border. And we purchased land at Cranbrook in Kent with consent for 160 homes and an additional ten acres of land for promotion. We also purchased consented land in Finchingfield (Braintree), Great Chesterford (Uttlesford) and Docking (Kings Lynn and West Norfolk) and unconsented land at Hardwick (South Cambridgeshire).
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Westley Green We were selected to develop one of the largest strategic land opportunities in recent years.
Garden City Community for Cambridgeshire At the start of 2021, we launched a major collaboration to create a new garden city community on 550 hectares of strategic land at Westley Green, beyond the Cambridgeshire green belt to the east of Cambridge. Along with our partners, L&Q Estates, we were selected by the landowner, Six Mile Bottom Estate, based on our extensive experience in development and placemaking. The collaboration will deliver strategic infrastructure, employment and multiple phases of new homes. Charles Cunningham-Reid, Landowner said: “Following a rigorous selection process, Hill and L&Q Estates came to the fore as a partnership that we felt best reflected our values and our desire to deliver a prestigious new development. Westley Green has the potential to provide much-needed housing in the area and the business units will provide employment opportunities and boost the local economy. The plans are in the very early stages, but I am excited by the approach of L&Q Estates and Hill to transform this part of Cambridge.” Westley Green is one of the largest strategic land opportunities to come to market in recent times and has the potential to become a blueprint for sustainable living. It will provide low carbon, high quality housing and state-ofthe-art infrastructure, while also generating vital employment and investment opportunities. The proposed new community will seek to build upon garden city principles, with an overarching focus on wellbeing, quality of life and placing nature at the heart of design.
The project could deliver up to 8,500 homes, and the supporting community facilities will include schools, sporting facilities, playgrounds, shops and supermarkets and a wealth of public parkland and green open spaces. We plan to provide significant onsite employment facilities, as well as flexi and co-working spaces, which could focus on Cambridge’s established science, technology, and agri-tech industries. There is also potential to connect to the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) system and autonomous vehicle travel between the neighbourhoods to reduce car use. Building on the region’s green credentials, this new community could also provide a comprehensive green infrastructure network, with net biodiversity gains that use zero-carbon and energy-positive technology, alongside potential onsite energy generation.
"At Hill we are actively seeking more strategic land opportunities across southern England and have a highly experienced team available to deliver sustainable mixed use developments through our planning and development expertise. Starting the work on Westley Green is an excellent start to our plans over the next year, and clearly shows our ambition to invest in, and promote land for, new development." Matt Tunley, Head of Strategic Land at Hill
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15. Land Cont.
Extending our Workforce
Homes at Canalside, Oxford North
With many projects already in the pipeline we are expanding our team of land specialists so we can continue to grow and take on new business.
As Thomas White Oxford’s (TWO) selected development partner for Oxford North, we were delighted to announce we will be delivering the first phase of new homes at Canalside, near Wolvercote, Oxford. Canalside is a 3.5 hectare site in the western area of the Oxford North development, south of the A40.
New recruits include Sandeep Sankoli, who joined Hill as our Head of London Land and Partnerships. Sandeep has diverse sector experience, including plc, housing associations, government and build to rent, specialising in mixed-use development, private rented sector investment and urban regeneration. In his newly created role, Sandeep is focused on growing Hill’s presence in the capital and the home counties, building on recent notable schemes such as Lampton Parkside in Hounslow, the Teviot Estate regeneration in Poplar, and the Woolwich Leisure Centre residential development. We also appointed a new Head of Land West, who will help to grow business in our Western region.
TWO received planning permission from Oxford City Council for the 64-acre masterplan, which will create 4,500 new science and technology jobs, 480 new homes and 23 acres of open spaces. We are now working on our planning application for the first phase of new homes, both market and affordable, in line with the approved masterplan. William Donger, CEO, Thomas White Oxford said: “We selected Hill as our development partner from a wide range of responses to our residential partner search due to their national housebuilder experience, knowledge of the local area and their strong sustainability credentials.”
“This is a significant project for Oxford and will serve to create a new community for the city, while generating many employment opportunities. We will be looking to expand the workforce to help deliver this project and will welcome applicants, particularly from the local area, who will benefit from our comprehensive training and development programmes.” Andy Hill, Group Chief Executive, MCIOB
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Canalside, Oxford North
Cranbrook We brought forward a detailed planning application for 180 new homes in Cranbrook, within the emerging Tunbridge Wells Local Plan for development, which benefits from an outline planning permission, granted in 2020. Our public consultation launched in autumn 2021, when the local community had a chance to view the plans for the development, which include a network of footpaths and cycle paths across the site. This aims to boost sustainability and help ease dependence on cars, not only around the site, but also in its connections into Cranbrook.
“Great care has been taken in the development of the masterplan to ensure that the proposals are sympathetic to the sites setting within the AONB and neighbouring ancient woodland. A ‘landscape first’ approach was taken, meaning that this was our first consideration when compiling the masterplan.” Terry Gamble, Senior Development Manager
Village Inspiration We will be building a new development around a village green in Great Chesterford.
Planning Permission at Great Chesterford We received planning consent to construct 76 new homes in Great Chesterford, Essex, after detailed consultation with residents. Forty per cent of the total housing provision will be affordable, and we will also be enhancing the local landscape by centring the development around a village green, as well as planting more than a thousand of new trees to create a community woodland near the development. Eco-friendly infrastructure provision will include footpaths and cycle links connecting to local transport hubs, and we will also be providing around 200 photovoltaic panels for enhanced energy performance. Green Energy At Great Chesterford we will be using photovoltaic panels as part of our drive to cut down carbon emissions.
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16. Tackling Homelessness
Innovations to tackle homelessness Hill was founded in 1999 to deliver affordable housing, an endeavour that has supported our growth and evolution into a successful housebuilder and placemaker of diverse and thriving communities.
A First Of Many The first of our Foundation 200 units are located on a disused garage site at Crowlands Way, Cambridge.
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And our firm commitment to delivering industry-leading social value to communities has only grown stronger over the years, culminating in our pioneering initiative to address homelessness, launched to celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary in business.
Foundation 200 The Foundation 200 programme was launched in late 2019 to mark our 20th anniversary. It is a pledge to gift 200 modular homes to homelessness charities as part of a £15m social impact fund running over five years, providing safe, comfortable and sustainable homes to single people experiencing periods of homelessness. We aim to provide a safe roof over their heads while they rebuild their lives with the support of local homelessness charity partners. “After all that time at hostels, in night shelters and on the streets, you can shut your front door and lock it and just be you or be with the people you choose to have as company. It’s just ideal.” SoloHaus resident
“One of our driving forces at Hill Group is creating real, tangible social value that leaves a positive, lasting impact on communities now and in the future.” ANDY HILL , GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE , MCIOB
Safe, Comfortable and Sustainable Homes Specially designed and purpose built modular homes.
SoloHaus To fulfil the aims of Foundation 200, Hill developed the SoloHaus, a purpose built modular home, designed and developed with thought and care to meet the needs of single people experiencing a period of homelessness. Whereas Foundation 200 aimed to deliver 200 of the SoloHaus homes in the company’s operational areas over a five year period, the significant demand for the homes required Hill to upscale production and launch the product for wider distribution. The homes now also sit on completed developments where local authorities and charities have purchased them in numbers in an attempt to relieve their housing shortages for the single homeless.
Environment SoloHaus homes are highly efficient and energy costs less than £5 per week.
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Cont.
Fast Delivery Factory construction is efficient and cost effective and the units are delivered to site complete and ready for installation.
Factory Built SoloHaus homes are built at our two factories in the West Midlands. The houses are robust, easy to transport and arrive fully complete and ready for simple site connection and commissioning. They present a genuinely viable solution for helping ease homelessness while avoiding the ongoing expenses associated with traditional temporary accommodation provision. SoloHaus homes are BOPAS certified and designed for a single person and they come fully equipped with everything residents need, including furniture, white goods and bedding. Each modular home provides the individual with a safe and comfortable space to get back on their feet, find work and move towards independence. Thanks to air source heat pumps and mechanical
ventilation heat recovery systems, they are extremely energy efficient, with running costs of less than £5 per week. SoloHaus homes have been designed to meet Future Homes Standards, exceeding building regulations for energy efficiency and sound insulation. With a design life of 60 years, they provide a short-term solution to vulnerable individuals who have nowhere to call home.
“You walk in. You got your sofa, you got – all this was provided – your telly, your bathroom, you’ve got a little utility room, and then you’ve got your bedroom.” SoloHaus resident
Social Foundation 200 is a £15m initiative to deliver 200 SoloHaus homes by 2025.
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Tottenham First The first Foundation 200 homes in London occupy a former TFL site in Haringey.
Cambridge: the first city in the UK to explore purpose-built modular homes as a homeless solution After launching Foundation 200 in late 2019, the first homes opened in December 2020 on a council-owned garage site in Cambridge. The homes were handed over to our charity partner, Jimmy’s, who gave four rough sleepers an unforgettable Christmas present, the chance to sleep under their own roofs. Described as “a lifeline for people experiencing homelessness” by the University of Cambridge, a total of 16 homes had been delivered in the city across three sites by the end of 2021. London: 33 SoloHaus homes handed over to Haringey Council in October Situated on a former storage yard on Ermine Road, Tottenham, the new development provides accommodation for 33 people, helping rebuild their lives after a period of rough sleeping. Hill donated a number of homes to the development, with funding for the remaining modules provided by the GLA and central government.
“It’s a place where I can find some direction and see what doors are open to me.” Cambridge SoloHaus resident
Specialist support from the council will enable residents to adjust and settle into their new homes and tackle the issues that led them to homelessness. At the official launch of the scheme, Deputy Chief Executive, Greg Hill, was joined by Deputy Mayor of London, Tom Copley and Leader of Haringey Council, Cllr Peray Ahmet, to celebrate the handover of the 33 new homes. And all residents received a special Christmas gift from Hill when hampers of festive treats were delivered to their homes to celebrate the holiday.
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Cont.
Cornwall: 29 modular homes delivered in December Partnering with Hill, Cornwall Council is set to tackle homelessness with its initial purchase of 29 modular homes for key locations throughout the county. Described by the council as a real tipping point in solving the housing crisis, the turnaround was speedy and efficient, with the opportunity to buy the homes identified in August for delivery by the end of the year. With the council’s hope that “this is the first batch of many SoloHaus units for Cornwall”, officials have paid testament to the homes’ high “sustainability, efficiency, safety and durability standards”.
Profile Raising Along with our partners in our homelessness project, we embarked on a campaign to win support at national and local government level.
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High Profile Partnership Hill joined forces with The Salvation Army and Citizens UK to create a partnership dedicated to creating community-led supported accommodation projects through Foundation 200. The partnership builds on the work each partner organisation provides to people who have experienced homelessness, helping them to learn and heal from their experiences. In June, the partnership positioned a SoloHaus home on the lawn of Westminster Abbey and embarked on a week-long PR event to promote the work it is doing. Using the location’s geographical proximity to the Houses of Parliament, the event was an effective platform to call on the government, local authorities and landowners to back the programme, provide funding, and identify small pockets of land to be used as sites for the homes. In 2021, the partnership began work setting up supported accommodation developments in Southend, Basildon and Bristol, with projects starting in Stevenage and Hemel Hempstead in early 2022.
Going the Extra Distance
At London Build, Olympia
“I’m happier. More relaxed. I walk to the shop and bump into a couple of people. It’s the first time I’ve felt settled. It’s more homely than I felt for a long, long, long, long, long time.” SoloHaus resident
SoloHaus on Show From architects and engineers to local authorities, industry representatives had a chance to view the innovative SoloHaus designs at the Coventry Expo in September. It was the first public viewing of the homes at an open exhibition, and the first time the Offsite Expo has featured a modular home in their exhibition hall. In November, members of the public got their chance to see SoloHaus close up at the London Build Expo in Hammersmith, also showcasing modular homes for the first time in its exhibition. We were thrilled to demonstrate the SoloHaus to industry peers and the public, acknowledging the honour it has been for us to build the first, purpose-built, modular homes specifically designed for the homeless.
The Foundation Year We have now gifted 32 homes on site across various schemes in the south east and have many more homes committed to charities and local authority stakeholders, which are currently being progressed through the planning system. Consequently, we remain confident that we can still deliver all gifted SoloHaus homes within the original five-year plan.
But it’s not just about giving people a place to live. We have also committed to providing ongoing support for residents in critical areas, and in London we seek to employ tenants in our developments within Haringey and its adjacent boroughs. In Cambridge, we are working with Jimmy’s to progress residents through apprenticeships and into employment on our sites. Following a period of support from Jimmy’s Cambridge, a charity which helps people experiencing homelessness, we sponsored Craig, a labourer working for Extreme Scaffold at Cambridge Investment Partnership’s Colville Road Phase 2 to complete his CSCS and HSE training, which ultimately led to his gaining full time employment. Craig said, “I’ve settled in well and get on with everyone on site. The job is harder than I expected but is very rewarding and I am enjoying every day. My favourite part has been learning new skills, also the physical aspect has been good.”
Awards and Achievements We are very proud to have been awarded several awards for our innovative homelessness initiatives. These include the prestigious Best Social Impact Initiative at the RESI Awards 2021 and a NextGeneration Innovation Award. Time Out magazine awarded Hill and Haringey Council a ‘Best of the City’ Award for Innovation of the Year 2021 for our SoloHaus development in Tottenham. Time Out described the SoloHaus homes as “sleekly designed, well-furnished spaces that put a lot of Rightmove rentals to shame”, an innovation that “could be a practical solution to London’s housing woes”. Speaking about the award, Cllr Peray Ahmet, Leader of Haringey Council, said that our Tottenham collaboration is helping to “deliver good quality, transitional housing that ensures people in need can get their lives back on track.”
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17. Supply Chain
Building long-lasting relationships The calibre of our supplier network is one of the key factors in the Hill success story and the past two years are testament to the strength and resilience of our relationships. Together with our suppliers, we continued to build safely during COVID and worked together to maintain protected environments across all our developments. As a result, we have emerged from the past two years in a strong position to move forward and fulfil our growth plans. We will continue to develop these relationships, investing in, supporting, rewarding and expanding our supplier base, promoting innovative operations and finding more efficient, sustainable ways of working.
Trusted Trades Trades operatives from our approved supply chain members on our Rubicon site in Cambridge.
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17. Supply Chain Cont. Getting Acquainted We hold Meet the Buyer and Supplier Engagement Days to widen the net of supplier relationships.
Building New Relationships
New Supply Chain Partners
It is very important to Hill to support the local economies in which we work. As COVID restrictions eased, we were delighted to begin hosting events to establish relationships and engage with tradespeople local to our developments.
We have added several new partners to our supply chain over the last year. O’Neil and Brennan and Hays will both help with recruitment throughout our regions, and Leggwork Construction Services will assist us in building our new Bristol team.
We held a Meet the Buyers event in Camden in September and took part in supplier engagement days in Norfolk in September and Bristol in November. These events give us the opportunity to set out what we do and engage with the community, and are a way of making valuable contacts and contracting work to local suppliers. As we continue to expand into new areas, these events are increasingly important to set up valuable new relationships and expand our supply chain.
Doing The Leggwork We work with specialist agencies, like Leggwork in our new South West Region, to help us find new supply chain partners.
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We have also appointed Manor Interiors to supply and install kitchens for our Classic specification on residential developments. They have already started work on Kenilworth Close in Stevenage, The Pavillions in Essex, and Capstone Fields in Cambridgeshire.
Chain Reaction This year we will be hosting a special awards event to recognise the hard work and dedication of the people who work on our sites.
The Year in Review Despite the restrictions of the pandemic and the big changes necessitated in our way of working, our investment in our supply chain actually increased. There was a rise of £37m in subcontract orders raised between 2020 and 2021 and also an increase in the number of companies we dealt with. We’re delighted to note that our average subcontractor performance score also rose during this period. Subcontract Orders Raised
£298.6m with 477 companies
£350m £300m
£335.7m with 482 companies
£250m
Supply Chain Awards 2022
£200m
Our supply chain makes an incredible contribution to our business every day and is an important factor in our success story. Not only are we delighted to have such strong working relationships with all our suppliers, we also want to publicly acknowledge the work that they do.
£150m £100m £50m £0m 2020
2021
Average Subcontractor Performance Score
72.7%
73.1%
in 2020
in 2021
Two years ago, we planned to hold an event to say a big thank you to our suppliers and reward their dedication. The plans were cancelled due to safety concerns around COVID and last year’s plans for the event also sadly had to be put on hold. Now, we are delighted to announce that this year, we will be hosting the first Hill Supply Chain Awards in London in June. We will be welcoming friends, colleagues and employees to celebrate the invaluable work of our suppliers, recognising their hard work and paying tribute to their dedication, which the last two years has highlighted like never before. Awards will be offered in several categories with the overall Supplier of the Year award presented to the company who has gone over and above the call of duty in supporting our business and growth.
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Preferred Supplier List Renewed We have renewed our preferred supplier list for trades and labour for another three years, which will ensure we have a trusted pool of subcontractors ready to meet the demands of our development work. We have built strong relationships with our supply chain over the years and this process has given us the opportunity to solidify those for several years to come, as well as giving us the opportunity to engage with new suppliers to support us in our new areas of operation. Newcomer’s experience Thomas Smith, Company Director at T&D Electrical said: “T&D Electrical are a relative newcomer to the Hill Group supply chain as we were awarded our first contract with Hill in April 2020. This happened as the COVID pandemic was starting to take a far more serious turn regarding restrictions and lockdowns. We were mostly engaged in the design phase whilst the lockdown period was enforced, and we found that Hill’s design team were extremely knowledgeable and helpful. They were well versed in conducting design meetings with our M&E designer, the client and Hill site team using
online video platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, which negated the need for face-to-face meetings and achieved the desired results. When the time came for us to begin work on site, lockdown restrictions had lifted for construction workers and we were pleased to find that Hill had put in sensible measures for operating safely. This proved extremely valuable as we managed to keep COVID away from site for an extremely long time considering the amount of people coming and going. Overall, we have very much enjoyed working with Hill over the last two years. In this time, we have completed Phase A of Littlemore Park, Phases J2 and J3 of Mosaics and are currently mid-way through phases B&C of Littlemore Park. Whilst completing these projects, we have found the site, commercial, design and senior management teams all extremely professional and motivated. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Hill in the future.”
Finishing Touch Our electrical suppliers are key to helping us deliver contemporary homes.
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Long-term relationship Richard Kipping, Sales Director at Camtech Building Products, said: “We have been supplying Hill regularly for eight years, with notable projects including Athena, Marleigh, Ironworks and Harrow One developments, and have always found them to be a knowledgeable, conscientious, organised, ethical and friendly company to work with. The majority of schemes we work together on are in and around Cambridge and include private, joint venture and social housing sites. Among our challenges during the pandemic was having to furlough some of our staff for two months and there were also issues with haulage, due to the numbers of drivers contracting COVID. The challenges however were well managed by the logistics teams across our companies, and we worked closely with Hill during this period to ensure we provided a continued supply of bricks. We also collaborated with Hill in working remotely for up to four months.”
A Solid Relationship Camtech Building Products are working with us to deliver several projects across Cambridge and London.
Continued support Steve Jordan, Operations Director at KW Watts, plumbing and heating specialists, said: “The opportunity to work with Hill was something we relished and the development of the site at North Town, Aldershot, was our first project together. Shortly after starting on site at North Town, the country was in a strict lockdown and the future of the industry was in question. With our in-house health and safety manager we worked closely with Hill to ensure all operatives were working in the safest environment possible.
Water Tight KW Watts plumbing and heating specialists have worked with us in Aldershot and Bracknell.
Hill is very keen to build lasting working relationships, and this was bolstered when we were awarded another landmark development on the Amber House site in Bracknell. This consisted of work over multiple floors, with larger mechanical systems than North Town, and this allowed us to demonstrate our skills further.”
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Contact
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