latest news 

The first ten sites under the TFL/GLA’s ‘Small sites Small builders’ Programme were released for bidding. Phases put in a bid on one of these sites, in Edmonton, with the help of David Corley Architects. That bid was unsuccessful but this is only the start of a Programme which will see many sites released over the next few years and Phases hopes to be successful in future rounds.

Phases were invited, as a community housing organization, to the National Housing Federation conference in London. The conference is mainly for housing associations but Phases took part in sessions on community-led housing and on modern methods of construction.

This show at London’s Excel Arena featured many of the main players in the rapidly emerging world of offsite construction. We were able to speak to a number of companies (Caledonian, Extraspace Solutions and Premier Modular) about proposals for one of our new build projects in Bexley and they took away drawings and specifications to consider There were also interesting presentations by the Offsite Management School on the future direction of the industry’.

This is a network of local authorities, across the country, which promotes cooperative principles and innovation in local government. The network has established a ‘Housing Commission’ to look at how cooperative and community based organisations might provide solutions to the housing crisis. The Commission is being led by the London Borough of Croydon. This evidence-gathering session in Croydon was attended by many officers from different London boroughs, as well as organisations promoting community housing solutions in London and beyond. PHASES were invited as one of a small number of organisations actually generating community housing in London. The network will report in September 2017 but in the meantime Croydon are hosting a good practice website and blog which will feature PHASES, amongst other organisations.

With the agreement of the Trustees, PHASES has made a strategic decision to consider a new build project. An opportunity presents itself on a site which is vacant next to the project at 340 Brockley Road which we completed during 2015. We have now obtained architect’s sketches for up to six flats on the site. As the site is next to a railway embankment, we have also opened discussions with Network Rail.

With no imminent empty property projects ahead and PHASES’ plans for a first new build project still in the early stages, we have announced a plan to carry out a series of maintenance works at a number of our properties. This will initially take place at six of our properties during the year and will provide trainees with experience in electrical maintenance, carpentry, plastering and painting and decorating.

We held an ‘awards’ ceremony in Camberwell for some of the 18 trainees who had passed through our workshop training phase during the year. All of these trainees had successfully completed our multi-skills course at the Rotherhithe workshop. They included ex-services personnel, refugees and trainees who had come through drug and alcohol problems. Seven of these trainees had gained additional on-site work experience on our empty property renovation projects.