EC Harris appointed consultant for South West affordable homes

International consultancy EC Harris has won a National Change Agent commission to provide consultancy services for Advantage South West.

The firm will develop a procurement business plan for the affordable housing consortium in the South West. The consortium recently won a Housing Corporation Gold Award for excellence in the use of modern methods of construction to deliver affordable homes.

ASW chairman, David Renwick said: “The expertise that E C Harris bring to the equation will be crucial in helping us to achieve our goals.”

ASW was set up two years ago by South Somerset Homes, Ocean Housing Group, North Devon Homes and Devon and Cornwall Housing to provide factory built timber frame homes that can be erected on site in half the time it takes using traditional construction methods. Frame Homes and Advanced Panel Systems are the main providers, with joint capacity to deliver up to 3,000 affordable homes a year.

ASW partners have been joined by six other local housing associations – Coastline Housing, Penwith Housing Association, Riviera Housing Trust, Teign Housing, Tor Homes and Westcountry Housing Association – in order to develop a procurement consortium.

Owning 44,000 homes across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, the consortium will be spending more than £86m over the next 5 years on capital works programmes.