Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 279)
WEDNESDAY 7 JULY 2004
MS TRISHA
GUPTA AND
MR JOHN
OLDHAM
Q260 Joan Walley: Just pursuing how
you in a way have added value in terms of the approach that you
had towards all of this, could I just pursue the reply you gave
to the Chairman earlier about what drives this agenda, whether
it is local authorities or architects, and you talked about the
concern about planners. How much do you think the new special
delivery vehicles in areas where there is a huge focus on regeneration
can help to drive the agenda?
Mr Oldham: Well, we are working
with one in particular at the moment. One of the issues in the
introduction to this was this debate between the planning process
and actual delivery and the first time in my memory in southern
Britain I am now getting one or two local authorities in southern
Britain actually asking me, "When are you going to build
houses?" I say, "It is over to you guys," and what
we are trying to do with the delivery vehicles is speak with them
in terms of this issue not only about quality of development but
quantity of development and how we can work informal or formal
partnerships together to actually make things happen. So, for
example, on one particular scheme at the moment there is a delivery
organisation looking towards some form of guided public transport,
there is a county council looking at a planning application for
a major highway for access and we are looking forward to working
out master plans for planning applications. So we are trying to
coordinate the work together and sharing the information. We may
be sharing information on archaeology and ecology as we go through
the process. So there is beginning to be, very, very slowly, some
working together, which we are slightly encouraged by.
Q261 Joan Walley: In respect of your
approach and the added value to your own company, is that just
added value financially? Is there an extra return for shareholders,
or is it in terms of other measurements, in terms of perhaps the
standing that you have? How would you define the added value that
you have to your company as a result of your approach?
Mr Oldham: I think added value
comes in many ways. For example, we want to add value to the reputation
of our company by attracting graduate recruits to our company.
We want to retain people in our company. So that is a very important
consideration because the better your team is, the more you will
be able to do as a business. We also want to actually try to act
as responsibly as we can because there are commercial and corporate
requirements for us to do that, but it also adds value in terms
of again word of mouth reputation. So in terms of the business,
it is not just the financial bottom line, there is a wealth of
other measures. I do not think the word is altruism either, as
I think the Chairman said earlier on. It is commercial and it
is common sense and sustainability will add to our business, and
you have got to go with the flow.
Q262 Joan Walley: How does the fit
in then with the contractors that you have?
Mr Oldham: Well, that is an absolute
fundamental question because it is how we can spread our message
out to the supply industry, to the people who construct our homes
and that is something we are working very, very hard to try to
do, but it is a huge industry out there.
Q263 Joan Walley: Do you find they
are queuing up to work with you or would they rather not touch
you with a barge pole?
Mr Oldham: There are various responses.
We are tough.
Q264 Joan Walley: How do you see
reaching out and providing more information and more education
about the benefits from working in this different kind of way?
How do you feel that you can help get sustainable development
on the agenda of contractors or those people going through construction
colleges, hopefully the one in Burslam that I referred to just
now? How is this approach being rolled out?
Ms Gupta: Well, we issue an Environmental,
Social and Ethical report every year along with our Report and
Accounts and this describes our approach to corporate social responsibility
generally, not just environmental issues.
Q265 Joan Walley: What about the
people you are actually employing? Do you go through training
with them?
Mr Oldham: Yes, we do. We have
regular environmental forums. We employ a group sustainability
manager, who holds forums with all parts of the business. We also
have an environmental management system which is being rolled
out throughout the business and that runs in line with our quality
management system. We have an information centre which is called
the Hub, which is an Intranet, which gives people details about
environmental issues, sustainability issues, the latest schemes,
the latest materials that we have been using. So all that information
is accessible and there is continuous training.
Q266 Joan Walley: So when you take
people on, when you recruit people, are they easy to find or do
you find that there is a large gap that you have to plug in terms
of their understanding of this agenda?
Ms Gupta: We describe our environmental
agenda right from the very start, so when new employees have induction
training—
Q267 Joan Walley: No, what I mean
is when you are recruiting people, when you are interviewing people
for jobs, have people got the skills or do you accept that you
then have to train them into it?
Ms Gupta: A lot of people are
attracted to the company because of our approach to corporate
social responsibility issues, so they come along with that understanding.
Those who could do with training receive the appropriate training.
Q268 Joan Walley: So there is no
skills shortage? That is what I am really getting at.
Ms Gupta: No. What I was moving
on to is that we recognise that there is a skills shortage to
deal with training and recruitment on various levels. We take
on apprentices, on site, and train them. We take people on day
release, who are going to college, and train them in that way
whilst supporting them through college. We sponsor people through
university, giving them paid work experience during their summer
break programme throughout the company in various departments
or subsidiaries, so that they become rounded employees and hopefully
will be our high-flyers of the future. So we are tackling training
at all levels.
Mr Oldham: There is a skills shortage.
It is hard finding people.
Q269 Joan Walley: That is really
what we were concerned about. Just one last question. You are
not a member of the House Builders Federation, are you?
Ms Gupta: No.
Mr Oldham: I think we re-focussed
our emphasis, again just thinking about the planning system, to
be absolutely fair, towards the CBI because lots of things that
we were interested in were about job growth and employment.
Q270 Joan Walley: So it is not a
question of no confidence in the House Builders Federation?
Mr Oldham: No. We have just actually
refocused ourselves on to employment because the planning system
was looking towards jobs. Housing people is bizarrely the sort
of thing that we do not want to do as a nation.
Joan Walley: Thank you.
Q271 Mr Savidge: In your view, is
the Sustainable Communities Plan really about sustainable development
or do you feel that sustainability and environmental aims are
being compromised by the wish to have quick, cheap homes?
Ms Gupta: I think it is about
sustainable development. Obviously with the number of houses that
need to be provided, we could not carry on building new housing
in the way that we were. Sustainable development deserves to be
much higher up the agenda.
Mr Oldham: It is clear to us again,
going through from central government down to local government,
there is a process and that the process is starting off again
with PPS1 and this drive on the path to sustainable development.
So it is being led from the government and it is coming down through
local government, and it is a much wider thing. This home building
is about building communities and it is all those attributes that
make communities safe and great places to live in.
Q272 Mr Savidge: We have had comments
from several witnesses expressing concern about the way in which
infrastructure and facilities are being developed alongside all
the new housing. From your experience, would that be a cause for
concern or not? Does it mean that there is not necessarily going
to be cross-planning?
Mr Oldham: Well, there are lots
of responses to that. It is some strange, bizarre middle-class
thing in that sometimes if we want to construct a neighbourhood
centre sometimes we have problems actually building a neighbourhood
centre in a housing area even though there is this planning concept
about reducing the need for trips and journeys and providing local
services. Often people reject having a neighbourhood centre. They
would rather have no shops or services and would rather drive
to the town. So we have those sort of tensions which we find quite
perverse at times. In terms of infrastructure, one of the interesting
things at the moment we are trying to experiment with is to persuade
people to use public transport more and we need to actually work
far closer with local government about car parking provision because
that is another issue, car parking. If you are doing an urban
extension, what happens with the management of car parks in the
town centres? So there are those issues in the infrastructure.
Again, there are issues with the Chamber of Trade and Commerce
and reactions to a loss of car parking in the Town Centre. There
are lots of little tensions within local politics on these issues
and car parks are huge revenue generators and often it is the
local government which is in control of the car parks as well.
Q273 Paul Flynn: You use EcoHomes
and BREEAM. Is this a nationally recognised standard and are you
entirely happy with it, or would you like to see it improved in
any way? Have you any criticisms to make of this standard?
Ms Gupta: We have been very happy
using the EcoHomes system, which was developed by the Building
Research Establishment, and it is very easy to understand. We
chose to use it as one of our objectives to improve the standards
of our new homes. So if you equate the latest building regulations,
they are probably "pass" on the standard. There is "pass",
"good", "very good" and "excellent".
At the moment our objective, and what we are achieving, is that
all our new homes are built to at least a "good" standard,
so that is another level up. But we have achieved "very good"
on some sites and Greenwich Millennium Village was the first development
to achieve "excellent", so that is as high as you can
get.
Mr Oldham: Could I just add to
this, though, that one concern we have got, and again it is to
do with the comment I made earlier on, is about local government
moving on the path through new planning documentation for
sustainable development. On the comment earlier on, when the Ministers
were speaking about the level playing field, one thing which we
would welcome is that local government now from boroughs, cities
or district councils are all coming out with sustainable construction
documents, their supplementary planning documents. Every place
is different and if we had a national standard using BREEAM it
would be a lot easier for our industry to actually work through
that, because everywhere you go people have got different measures
on how we can actually move on this path and it is getting quite
complex now trying to move this forward.
Q274 Chairman: The fact that you
are achieving "good" in a 100% of your plans can mean
one of two things, can it not? It could mean that you are outstanding
and good, or it could mean that the tests are not very demanding?
Ms Gupta: Well, obviously they
get more demanding as you go up the scale, but if you actually
understand how it works and know how to approach it, it is not
unachievable obviously.
Q275 Chairman: It is probably too
easily achievable?
Ms Gupta: It is not purely based
on measures such as the thermal qualities of the materials that
you are using, but also things like the proximity of local services,
orientation, transport et cetera. It is a package of measures.
Mr Oldham: One of the things that
again we are trying to do—and you obviously cannot build
Rome in a day—year on year is set targets and improve our
targets. So we have got objectives across a whole range of issues
and "good" is to move more into "very good",
so it is plodding on through the process really.
Q276 Paul Flynn: What would you like
to see of the new code recommended by the Sustainable Buildings
Task Group, which I believe is based on the recommendations of
the BRE standard?
Mr Oldham: We are not aware of
that, I am afraid.
Ms Gupta: No.
Q277 Chairman: That does suggest
that somebody is not communicating properly because if there is
a Sustainable Buildings Task Group which has produced a new code,
companies like you should be aware of it.
Mr Oldham: My apologies. I actually
misheard. I thought you said new co like a new company.
Q278 Chairman: No, it is a code of
practice.
Mr Oldham: Well, again that will
come out through our own technical managers. Within the company
there are different departments with different responsibilities
and they will be reporting to our environmental committee about
that. I have not seen a report on that so I cannot comment, but
if you would like us to write back on that we certainly would.
Q279 Paul Flynn: If you would, please,
and we would like your view on what is the best way forward, whether
the existing standards or going into new areas. As a final question,
what policy changes would you like to see in the next five years
to ensure that we build more sustainable homes?
Ms Gupta: I would like to see
sustainability issues embodied in the Building Regulations. If
you take the case of something like accessibility, when accessibility
was introduced as a requirement it was part of the planning process,
it was planning guidance and it varied throughout the country.
So you could have local authorities looking for 5% accessible
housing or 10% or 15%. And also the description of what accessible
housing was varied. In some instances it was for wheelchair standard,
in other instances it was just flush thresholds and minor items
like that and it was very confusing. However now it is part of
Building Regulations and everybody knows exactly what the standard
is and everybody knows where they are and what they have got to
do. It could be exactly the same with sustainability issues. If
those issues were embodied in the Building Regulations then there
would be no variation in interpretation, no confusion.
Chairman: Thank you. I am afraid we are
out of time, but we are most grateful to you for your evidence
and we look forward to hearing from you on the couple of points
that I think we agreed you would follow up for us. Thank you very
much indeed.
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