Blogs

Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) is increasingly recognised as a key solution to solving the UK’s housing crisis. In recent years it has carved a place in government policy, with Homes England placing it at the forefront of future housing development.

SWPA encourage all public sector organisation running tenders with social value outcomes to understand the groups in their areas and to try to align the outcome with the community. This will ensure that any funding or volunteer help goes directly to the community and will have a much greater impact. 

There has been extensive talk from central and local governments about decarbonising our housing stock and meeting our climate targets, resulting in government initiatives and funded schemes for technologies such as heat pumps, or boiler replacements, or once upon a time, feed in tariffs for microgeneration. Whilst these are all nice-to-haves none of them address the core issues we have with our housing stock and these issues will be exacerbated as global summer temperatures rise.

A fire door is an internal door built to slow down the spread of fire or smoke throughout a building, allowing more time for evacuation should a fire incident occur on a premises.

Due to their importance in protecting lives, it’s crucial they’re suitably fitted and regularly inspected. This article will explain how a fire door should be fitted to ensure maximum safety, from the types of materials used to staying on top of maintenance.

Tendering for public sector contracts is a competitive business, particularly for smaller organisations. The good news is that local authorities must consider their wider community goals, aims and objectives that benefit their area when awarding a contract. This includes supporting the local economy. 

MTX delivered Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s new Oxford Critical Care unit (OCC) at the city’s John Radcliffe Hospital using MMC.

The building was originally envisaged as three storeys, but the Trust quickly realised that it needed to be taller, and we worked closely with them to ensure the building met their new requirements.

The climate and biodiversity crises combined with the cost-of-living increase and its impact on fuel poverty has highlighted the importance behind the need to retrofit our existing buildings. The second wave of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund opening will enable some of this work to get started and offers great flexibility to upgrade your housing stock to achieve EPC ‘C’, as part of the journey towards Net Zero by 2050.

For several years, it has been identified that the adoption of offsite/modular housing has been the piecemeal with a number of clients interested to move forward on projects but wanting to “prove the concept” before committing themselves wholesale to adopting offsite solutions.

On the 27th of June 2019, the UK government declared the net zero emissions law, requiring the UK to reduce carbon emissions by 78% by 2035 and achieve net zero by 2050. However, for this to happen, significant changes must be made. For example, in the heat and building strategy, the government has outlined that they require high-efficiency, low-carbon buildings to help meet their target.

Waterproofing systems manufacturer Garland UK has taken a significant step in its commitment to sustainability, with the recent announcement that it will be a net-zero company by 2032, 18 years earlier than the Government’s 2050 net-carbon zero targets.