Wokingham Borough Council: Net Zero Carbon or Low Carbon Housing Developments– Market Engagement

Wokingham Borough Council is committed to the delivery of housing to meet the needs of its residents across the Borough, through high quality, affordable housing, which meets the highest sustainable credentials and deliver best value for money for the Borough’s residents. This commitment includes the utilisation of some of the Council’s own land assets for housing. We have two greenfield sites which we are seeking to develop with a mix of private and affordable housing, high quality open spaces and supporting infrastructure such as roads and utilities. Outline planning applications for the two sites have been submitted with determination anticipated in autumn 2021. It is currently envisaged that the sites will involve up to 87 and up to 130 units respectively with a mixture of one-to-four-bedroom units, though the exact number could change. The appointed developer will need to secure reserve matters planning consent. Wokingham Borough Council declared a climate emergency in July 2019 which commits us to playing as full a role as possible in reducing our carbon footprint to be net zero carbon by 2030. Our Climate Emergency Action Plan was approved at council in January 2020 and lays out the initial steps on our journey to achieve net zero carbon by 2030. “To meet our net zero carbon target, we are fully invested in delivering, as far as possible, net carbon zero housing developments. We are therefore seeking to find the most feasible and best value option, which significantly reduces the operational carbon footprint of the development – ideally fully achieving net carbon zero.” It is intended therefore that both developments should achieve the most feasible and best value option of reduction of carbon operational performance, be gas free and have the higher water efficiency standards contained in Regulation 36 of the Building Regulations. It is aimed to achieve a net gain of at least 10% of biodiversity on both sites. The Council is also interested to explore how potential contractor(s) will consider embodied carbon reduction and reducing carbon emissions associated with the construction. We are also particularly interested in what the incremental cost would be of building zero carbon versus standard building standards. Our ambition is to deliver a split of approximately 50% private dwellings and 50% of affordable housing on site, subject to financial assessment. The Council is interested to understand the different financial delivery models that could be used to deliver these housing developments. It is anticipated that the developer would own and be able to sell the private properties whilst the affordable housing would be managed by the Council’s housing company. We would like to hear supplier views on what the council should consider with regard to developing these sites in the best possible way. Depending on the number of interested suppliers, we will either host a number of supplier events with interested developers, or we will set up meetings with interested parties on a one-to-one basis, in the weeks following the closing date. This will be done either remotely or in person, depending on the Government’s guidance at the time of the event(s) and the number and location of suppliers. The relevant information obtained as part of the market engagement events will be carefully collated and incorporated into the subsequent tender documents. Market Engagement will take place on 6th September and possibly individual sessions on 13th and 14th September. EOI closes at 10am on 23 August 2021.