Our Community and Place Standard

We want our customers to live in safe, energy-efficient and affordable homes; homes that are comfortable, well-designed and that they’re proud to live in. And we want these homes to be part of vibrant and inclusive neighbourhoods that help support healthy, active lifestyles.

Our Community and Place Standard helps us meet these goals. It sets out our approach to designing and building high quality, safe and sustainable homes that are affordable to live in, and look after, in neighbourhoods that are enjoyable places to be.

The standard will give customers the best possible to start to their lives in their new homes. It’s flexible enough to apply to all our developments and regeneration schemes, regardless of size, scale and funding. We’ll use it to create neighbourhoods of single family homes as well as apartment blocks, in both rural and urban environments.

Our commitments

  • We’ll provide safe, affordable and energy-efficient homes that are well designed and comfortable to live in
  • We’ll support, and work with, customers to create homes and neighbourhoods that empower communities to thrive
  • We’ll make the most of our green spaces and protect the natural environment, while promoting health and wellbeing
  • We’ll reduce the impact of extreme weather on customers and work towards our long-term goal of achieving net zero carbon by 2050.

Download a copy of the Community and Place Standard (PDF, 10,452KB)

  • The community and place process

    Our Community and Place Standard has four distinct and complementary elements:

    • The design guide, which explains what’s important to us, and our customers, when designing and building homes, and neighbourhoods
    • The assessment tool, which enables us to benchmark schemes, and to consider drivers of value and placemaking in investment decisions. We’ll use the tool to score all new schemes at each approval stage, and as part of the post scheme review process.
    • The community and place engagement plan, which will support positive customer relationships and help create cohesive and resilient communities.
    • Acting on insight: Our Community and Place Standard is a dynamic document and process. A key component is gathering feedback from customers and colleagues on new schemes and making sure we use this insight to inform and shape our future developments.
  • Our communities

    We want to ensure that the homes and neighbourhoods we build empower communities to thrive and foster a sense of belonging. Our key principles for engaging with our communities are to:

    • Understand local priorities
    • Maximise positive social impact
    • Work collaboratively
    • Build relationships.
  • Our neighbourhoods

    We must ensure the areas around our homes, including our green spaces and shared amenities, are safe, well-designed and enhance the natural environment. The key principles in the design of our neighbourhoods are to:

    • Reflect the local character
    • Create safe and inclusive places
    • Have neighbourhoods that are practical to live in
    • Promote wellbeing
    • Maximise the potential of green spaces.
  • Our homes

    We want to build safe, sustainable, and affordable homes that are comfortable and enjoyable places for our customers to live. The key principles in the design of our homes are to:

    • Build in the right places
    • Build the right homes
    • Build resilient, future-proof homes
    • Provide safe, attractive and functional shared spaces
    • Enhance home life.
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