• Merry Christmas From MA
• ESG Summary 2024
• Newlon Hardship Fund Donation
• Project Case Study: Ashmere
• Tender Price Index Update
• Project Case Study: Church Farm
• MA 25th Anniversary Celebration
• Insights from the Autumn Budget 2024
• Autumn Conference Roundup

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Martin Arnold would like to wish all of our clients and colleagues a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

2024 has been a year of change and celebration with both the new Labour Government and legislative changes impacting the housing sector in significant ways. As a practice, we have celebrated our 25th anniversary and it is with renewed positivity and excitement for the challenges ahead, that we enter 2025.

We wish you and your families a restful winter break.

Our offices will be closing for the Christmas Break on the 24th of December and reopening on the 2nd of January 2025.

ESG Summary 2024

At Martin Arnold, we are passionate about giving back to the communities we serve and fostering the next generation of talent in the built environment. This year, we’ve proudly supported a range of charitable initiatives through both financial contributions and volunteer work, reaffirming our commitment to making a positive impact.

Martin Arnold donates £10,000 to the Newlon Hardship Fund

Martin Arnold is proud to announce a £10,000 donation to the Newlon Hardship Fund, a vital initiative that supports vulnerable residents living in Newlon Housing Trust properties. Having worked alongside Newlon Housing Trust for over a decade, we are honoured to contribute to a cause that makes a real difference to the lives of local people.

The Newlon Hardship Fund provides essential support to residents facing emergencies, debt or poverty. It not only offers immediate assistance but also promotes long-term stability, enhancing the social and emotional wellbeing of the community. By partnering with Newlon, we’re helping to improve lives, homes and communal spaces, while fostering a more sustainable and resilient community.

Both Managing Director Roger Arnold and Director Jamie Collins were pleased to present our donation to Newlon Housing Trust and their Hardship Fund team, represented by Chief Executive Mike Hinch, Assistant Director of Major Projects Charlie Giddings, Financial Inclusion Manager Kellie Dorrington and Assistant Director Head of Income Misba Bemath. Speaking about the donation, Roger said: “We recognise the importance of supporting sustainable initiatives and we’re delighted to help so many vulnerable residents through this fund. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Newlon to create lasting benefits for their communities.”

This donation highlights Martin Arnold’s commitment to delivering community-focused projects and our dedication to having a meaningful, positive impact on the people and organisations we serve.

Project Case Study: Ashmere

Martin Arnold was appointed as the Joint Venture Supervisor for the Ashmere development, a multi-phase project undertaken by Vistry and Latimer (Clarion Housing Association) in Ebbsfleet, Kent. This project, located in a former chalk quarry near the Bluewater Shopping Centre, aims to deliver approximately 2,500 homes over a ten-year programme, featuring a mix of affordable and private sale tenures.

Our team were responsible for cost management, ensuring financial transparency through an Open Book Protocol that fosters clear communication and robust financial oversight during all project phases.

Despite challenges from rising construction costs and market uncertainty, we collaborated closely with Vistry and Latimer to develop a viable budget. In the uncertain and inflationary market conditions driven by a combination of material and skilled labour shortages, lump sum, fixed price tenders could not be relied upon which added cost risk for the construction phase. Martin Arnold were able to assess the proposed budget and ensure it offered value for money; this was achieved by considering the results of a soft procurement exercise carried out by Vistry, alongside benchmark data obtained from contemporaneous projects.

Read more about the project here: https://www.martinarnold.co.uk/project/ashmere/

Tender Price Index Update

BCIS projects an annual tender price increase of 2.1%, primarily driven by rising labour costs. While material price inflation has stabilised—showing a decline of approximately 1.2% over the past year from its 2022 peak—current prices remain significantly elevated compared to pre-pandemic levels. Given ongoing uncertainties in the construction market, contractors are continuing to adopt cautious approaches to risk pricing.

Labour costs continue to be the primary driver of overall construction cost increases, with materials prices exhibiting stability. Looking ahead, costs are forecasted to rise by 2.7% in 2025 and 3.6% in 2026. Observations from Martin Arnold align with BCIS reports, indicating quarterly cost increases averaging 0.5%, influenced by these factors.

The residential construction sector has experienced a slowdown throughout 2024 as a result of increased interest costs, increased construction costs, changes in legislation, nervousness in the sales market and a lack of demand for affordable housing. In 2025 though, activity is expected to recover somewhat for a number of reasons.

The Building Safety Act (BSA) Gateway 2 review progresses with many projects remaining in pre-construction phases as clients and contractors face challenges meeting programme deadlines and accommodating additional design requirements. Whilst this has resulted in delays in project initiation and execution, we expect that the industry will adjust and adapt in due course to a new approach.

It is also expected that interest rates will continue to decrease which, even if not significant, will ease pressure on clients’ funding and start to unlock the sales market.

The other big driver of course is the new Government and whilst their targets may seem unrealistic, our rose tinted glasses view is that at least there is a clear stated intention of an increase in housebuilding. To enable this, they will need to provide additional funding to affordable housing; it just depends if they can find a way to do that.

The danger of a sudden increase in activity is that the restrictive and under-resourced Labour market won’t be able to respond, causing another construction cost surge. That said we remain optimistic that 2025 will bring a steadier, more active market.

Project Case Study: Church Farm

Martin Arnold acted as the Employer’s Agent and Clerk of Works for the Church Farm development, a flagship project delivered in partnership with Golding Homes and Vistry. This scheme features 155 homes across six apartment blocks and 105 houses, offering Affordable Rent and Shared Ownership options. A communal play area, allotment gardens, and landscaped trim trails also form part of the development.

Our role involved contract execution, monthly progress meetings, valuations, snagging, handovers, and defect management. Our Site Inspectors ensured construction quality through close coordination with the client’s development team.

Collaborating closely with the contractor allowed us to finish the project six months early, despite challenges around material shortages during COVID-19.

Read more about the project here: https://www.martinarnold.co.uk/project/church-farm/

MA 25th Anniversary Celebration

Thank you to the huge number of colleagues that joined us to celebrate Martin Arnold’s 25th anniversary. Throughout our history, we have collaborated with so many dedicated people including clients, consultants and contractors. We’re incredibly proud of the positive impact, our work has also had on our client’s residents too.

We have grown as a practice each year, based upon our principle of organic growth and our commitment to training young people. Today, we are delighted that over 25% of our 140-strong team are either apprentices or graduates all working towards becoming Chartered with the RICS.

Our Leadership team has worked together for over 20 years and despite some challenging times, we have navigated through them successfully, using lessons learned to drive our ambitious growth plans over the next few years.

A Step in the Right Direction, but a Journey Ahead: Insights from the Autumn Budget 2024

The Government set the tone on housing, before the Autumn Budget, pledging to deliver 1.5 million new homes in the next five years. Described by Keir Starmer as a “source of national shame”, the investment in new homes will tackle the rise in homeless families with Chancellor Rachel Reeves stating: “We are rebuilding Britain by ramping up housebuilding and delivering the 1.5 million new homes we so badly need.”

The first key highlight of the Budget is the £500 million boost to the existing Affordable Homes Programme, raising its total to £3.1 billion for 2025-26. This investment is expected to deliver 5,000 new social and affordable homes and bring the UK closer to Labour’s target of building 1.5 million homes within this Parliament. In addition, £3 billion has been allocated to support SMEs and the Build-to-Rent sector through housing guarantee schemes, ensuring developers can access low-cost loans to deliver homes at scale.

The second key highlight was the new five-year social housing rent settlement, which was welcomed and will help councils and housing associations plan and invest more effectively; this in turn will make them more attractive to long term investment. The mood across the sector, however, is that this measure has fallen short and that for substantial results a 10-year settlement is what is required. The Chartered Institute of Housing said:

“to fully support effective planning and sustainable investment, a 10-year settlement is needed…this level of certainty would empower housing providers to make the long-term commitments required to deliver the affordable homes that our communities urgently need and provide greater transparency for residents.”

With our experience in delivering newly constructed affordable homes we believe that these injections of funding are required, now and in the future, if the Government are going to unlock stalled projects and speed up delivery, as many current projects in the sector are struggling with significant financial viability issues. We believe that realising the Government’s 1.5 million homes target will require close collaboration between local authorities, housing associations, developers, and their supply chains to ensure success through medium and long-term partnerships.

Beyond new construction, the third highlight was the Government’s acknowledgement of the necessity to provide funding for works to existing social homes. The Budget prioritised further announcements to provide investment into building safety projects with a £1 billion being dedicated to the remediation of unsafe cladding in 2025/26. Plans were also announced for continuing efforts to make homes more energy efficient with £3.4bn being dedicated to Labour’s Warm Homes Plan to improve a further 225,000 households.

On building safety, and specifically cladding remediation, the Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council said in response to the Government’s statement:

“We welcome the Government’s commitment to improving building safety and accelerating the remediation programme, including the new investment to speed up the remediation of social housing.”

We have been involved in many successful re-cladding and building safety projects, and whilst we are buoyed by the success of these projects, we are also acutely aware that there is still a lot of remediation and building safety work to be carried out to HRBs across the affordable housing stock.

Landlords that have been able to establish a delivery programme of work to deal with their existing stock over the coming years, are now able to budget and plan more successfully not only on the delivery of their asset management improvement programmes, but they are also able to better understand their future costs for planning in investment for the future.

If you would like to talk with us about our experience of Joint Ventures or partnerships as successful methods of delivering new affordable homes please visit our website here. Similarly, if you would like to find out more about our building safety and cladding remediation projects, please visit our website here.

Autumn Conference Roundup

The last few months were a busy and exciting time for Martin Arnold, with our team actively participating in key industry events.

We were proud to take part in SEC 2024 on the 16th of September, where our Managing Director, Roger Arnold, served as the main host for the “Healthy and Safe Homes for All” panel discussion, along with our Director Ben Davis, Jean Kikay (Newlon Housing Trust), Ayo Allu (AAA Project Services) and Jake Le Page (Notting Hill Genesis). The event showcased critical insights into the challenges and opportunities shaping the sector.

Later, on the 22nd of October, we attended The Housing Forum’s 2024 National Conference, where housing experts and leaders came together to discuss the future of housing and sustainability.

One of the highlights of these conferences was the engaging panel discussions, which brought together industry leaders to explore innovative solutions for building a sustainable future. These sessions sparked meaningful conversations and provided valuable insights for the challenges ahead. It was inspiring to engage in discussions that align closely with Martin Arnold’s mission to create long-lasting value through collaboration and innovation.

We’re already looking forward to the 2025 conference season and the opportunity to continue contributing to the growth and evolution of the industry.