Building Homes

By Colleen Quinn, Senior Development Officer

"We shape our dwellings, and afterwards, our dwellings shape us." - Winston Churchill

Well designed, functional homes create the foundation on which people can live, grow, love, and become…. What? Well, with a good home the possibilities are endless.

At Clanmil, we aren't just building houses, we're building people's homes. Place-shaping and building stronger, sustainable communities is at the heart of what we do.

Our team handed over 346 new homes to people who needed them in the past year, involving an investment of around £44m. As well as great homes, this investment had a significant social value, creating employment, encouraging unemployed people back into the workforce and promoting social inclusion in the local community through buy social clauses.

Working in development, I get to witness the journey of a new home being delivered; from a clear site, to keys being handed over. There is nothing that can quite prepare you for the emotions of sharing that moment when someone receives the keys to their new home.

Housing Associations like Clanmil have much to offer as the country starts out on its coronavirus recovery journey - contributing to our economy, creating jobs and improving social value through the building of more high quality affordable homes. However, there is still a degree of uncertainty in the construction sector. Supply chains, production of materials and supplies of PPE have all been affected and we continue to see the impact of this on our construction projects.

We, along with everyone else, are adapting to these challenges and the idea of a “new normal”, and we will keep on being creative in finding innovative design solutions to meet the demands of a changing society. Over the next year, we will be investing a further £46m in the local economy and we hope construction continues at a pace for us to develop circa 300 new homes for people who need them, and we will continue to work closely with our contractors and consultants to deliver on our commitment to the buy social clauses in our contracts.

There are many challenges ahead, but at Clanmil we are learning to be comfortable with uncertainty and to embrace the "infinite opportunities that will open up" (Eckhart Tolle).