Lighthouse Cities - Bristol focusing on the “Value of Social Value”
Bristol is one of the most liveable cities in the UK. However, in common with many major cities in the UK, Bristol has a housing crisis. Over 2,000 new homes are required each year to address the housing waiting list and provide a permanent home to those living in temporary accommodation. Given the social needs of the city, 40% of new homes will need to be affordable. By increasing the stock and availability of high-quality housing, Bristol can address a key structural barrier to health equality, inclusive growth and environmental sustainability.
- Meeting the Housing Needs of the City of Bristol: Procuring for Triple Bottom Line Value
To enable housing innovation for inclusive growth, and to enable a fair and inclusive recovery from the pandemic, requires our measures of success to be inclusive too. As a city, we must be prepared to update the way we think about success to include both people and planet alongside profit. The UK Government have already begun to recognise this need (before Covid 19) through the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requiring ‘people who commission public services to think about how they can also secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits’.
Bristol City Council’s published Social Value Policy responds to the legal obligation upon local authorities and other public bodies under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 to consider the social good that could come from the procurement of services, before they embark upon it. This legislation, and Bristol City Council’s policy gives us an opportunity to build into procurement the wisdom of longer-term decision making, addressing issues such as the quality and the sustainability of our housing in a way that the traditional prioritisation of cost as the principal benchmark makes difficult.
We are also pleased to be working with the Centre for Thriving Places, as we consider how best to measure, not just the success of the physicality of the buildings, their sustainability and suitability for purpose, but also how to measure the success of the built environment, how they support people's sense of place, and their mental and physical wellbeing.
EVENT
The Value of Social Value
Thursday, October 15, 2020, 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM BST
Join Bev Hurley, (Chief Executive, YTKO), Fanyu Lin, (Founder, World Home Foundation), Ron Lang (Impact Director for Value, Construction Innovation Hub), Andrew van Doorn (Chief Executive, HACT), Jacqueline Miller (Commercialisation Development Manager, Bristol City Council) and Jez Sweetland (Project Director, Bristol Housing Festival) for a fascinating webinar on why social value must be at the forefront of the conversation if we’re to deliver affordable and sustainable homes. Of particular interest will be how Bristol City Council has implemented its own social value policy. This session will include Q&A.
CHAIR
PANEL
Bristol Housing Festival “Re-imagining better ways to live in our cities.”
The Bristol Housing Festival is holding a three-week industry-leading virtual expo this autumn to bring together experts in the housing and construction industry to discuss the future of housing and celebrate Bristol communities.
