5 April 2007

Report points to benefits of Ballater homes

[Click here for a text copy of full press release]

An innovative housing development in Ballater by Tenants First Housing Co-operative has been hailed for showing the way forward for similar developments in Scotland.

Independent research conducted for Communities Scotland says the construction technologies used for the five homes in the Tenants First pilot “can make an important contribution in the procurement and supply of high quality affordable housing in Scotland”.

Click here to see the précis and full report on the development.

The Ballater development has received wide-ranging praise since it was completed in 2004. The project received an award for excellence from the Tayside Grampian and Fife forum of Housing Associations. This was followed up by the top award for innovation in the Scottish Construction Forum awards.

Now that members have lived in the development for some time, the new report examines how the homes have performed and how the residents feel about them.

The houses were factory built, using what is known as a ‘closed panel’ system. Unlike timber-frame panels, the walls of these houses left the factory complete with insulation, services (such as water and electricity) and complete with both internal and external finishes.

On site the wall panels were then erected and made wind and water tight with pre-fabricated roof panels hinged in the middle.

The research, by Hexagon Research and Consulting and Alembic Research, finds that the Tenants First houses:

Sandy Murray, Chief Executive of Tenants First, is delighted with this latest endorsement of the housing co-operative’s innovative approach.

“The Ballater pilot project was our response to the challenges set out in Sir John Egan’s ‘Rethinking Construction’ report. It encouraged the UK construction industry to look at the benefits of carrying out more work off-site.

“It was our chairman, Martin van der Lee who suggested we look to his native Netherlands and the factory fabrication methods used there. This approach delivers a series of benefits including factory standards of quality control, less weather dependency and reduced construction time on-site.

“We see factory fabrication providing a long-term solution for the provision of affordable housing in other communities. It would enable us to order houses in volume and my hope is they could eventually be fabricated here in Scotland.”

The Ballater Development was funded by Communities Scotland. The architects were Michael Gilmour Associates, the builders were Mansell and other members of the construction team were Murray Montgomery Partnership and Ramsay and Chalmers.

To find out more about this development please visit our Ballater Development section by clicking on this link.