Creating Communities and Social Value

By implementing a range of social, economic, and environmental programmes to enhance the prosperity of a community, we can ensure residents feel the value of what we do, beyond the homes we’ve built.

Through local area research and collaboration with our partners, we create bespoke delivery plans that directly focus on specific challenges in the community. For example, in November 2023, we collected donations from across our sites, including contributions from our supply chain and head office, and opened several kindness shops across London. The donations such as much-needed items identified by community partners and winter warmth items to help address the increasing rates of fuel poverty and festive gifts for families struggling to afford presents for their children due to the cost-of-living crisis.

We started offering site-based roles to people ‘Released on Temporary License’ (ROTL), the government scheme allowing prisoners to be released temporarily into the community for specific purposes, such as to engage in employment, to maintain family ties, or to receive medical treatment. In 2023/24, we placed over 35 people from within the justice system in site-based roles helping them gain work experience to support their rehabilitation back into society.

We also collaborated with waste management and recycling business Powerday to raise money for the BBC’s Children in Need appeal. As part of the fundraising, we toured a Pudsey-themed skip around landmarks in West London and donated £10,000 to the appeal, which was matched by Powerday for a total donation of £20,000.

OUR FOUR PILLARS ARE:

Education to Employment: Equipping individuals with the skills and training needed to secure meaningful careers.

Community Belonging and Connectivity: Fostering a sense of belonging and connection within local communities.

Business Support and Mentoring: Empowering local businesses to flourish and contribute to the economic landscape.

Safe and Healthy Lives: Promoting healthy lifestyles and wellbeing initiatives for residents of all ages.

Our education to employment theme is about creating routes for people living in and around our developments to enhance their lives through education, training, and career development opportunities.

Women into Construction (WiC) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that promotes gender equality in the construction industry. We have partnered with WiC since 2017 to address the skills gap, and in 2023 and 2024, we collaborated with the HBF to engage 331 women through the initiative. Of these, 189 received one-to-one advice or guidance, and we helped train 109 women with new skills.

Creating jobs is a fundamental reason for our partnership, and we were pleased to receive 15 applications to work at Hill from the 2023 cohort, alongside the 27 women who gained jobs or apprenticeships via our work with WiC.

Working in partnership with the NHBC, Histon FC, and Cambridge City Council, we built and launched a new training hub near Histon FC’s stadium in West Cambridge.

The purpose-built hub is designed to immerse apprentices in a realistic working environment, preparing them for a future career in construction. The hub offers students accelerated learning, with bricklaying and groundworker apprenticeships completed in just 18-months rather than two and a half years.

Apprenticeships are crucial to the construction industry, helping to fill the skills gap and develop a well-trained workforce. Apprenticeships lead to better quality construction by teaching proper techniques and safety processes, all while offering those who choose apprenticeships careers and progression.

In 2023, we were awarded Platinum-accredited membership via The 5% Club’s 2023-24 Employer Audit Scheme. The 5% Club is a dynamic movement of employers inspired to take positive action for increased, inclusive, and accessible workplace training for all. The platinum award recognises our contribution to the continued development of all our employees through ‘earn and learn’ schemes such as apprenticeships, graduate schemes, and sponsored students course placements.

Launched to mark The 5% Club’s 10th Anniversary, the new platinum membership tier is awarded to participants who have achieved gold membership in three consecutive years, and who in their third year have 10% or more staff members ‘earning and learning’.

We hosted a networking breakfast at Knights Park, Eddington with Cambridge City Council and K10, to recognise the achievements of 18 local apprentices who all completed their level two apprenticeships and secured onward employment following their training.  We have invested £241,557 to increasing the number of construction apprenticeships in the Cambridge and East Anglia area.

Our education and employment recognises the importance of fostering a passion for learning and environmental awareness from a young age. This year, we launched several initiatives to engage primary school-aged children.

To spark their imaginations and build positive associations with construction, we introduced our mascots, Jack, Jill, and Billy the Bear who play important roles in our school engagement activities. We launched an ‘ESG Activity Book,’ designed to engage and educate primary school children about sustainability in a fun and informative way and we also produced a film featuring Jack and Jill, highlighting the importance of staying safe on site.

Our commitment to education extends beyond primary school-aged children, where we seek to engage and inspire older students to consider careers in construction.

We partnered with our contractor, Carey London, and The Rise, a school for special needs students in Hounslow, to revitalise the school’s playground. Through a series of creative workshops, the students helped shape the designs, sharing their vision and ideas for a space that would be both stimulating and calming.

Working in collaboration, we translated the students’ ideas into plans, including sensory pathways, play equipment, and quiet areas for reflection. The new design provides space for physical activity and exploration, sensory development, and social interaction. The school’s students now have a place where they can engage with their surroundings in meaningful ways.

We believe a strong sense of community belonging strengthens the social fabric, improves wellbeing, and creates more resilient communities.

In July 2023, we co-hosted the annual ‘Our Teviot’ summer festival with our partner, the housing association, Poplar HARCA. The event was held at the Teviot Centre and was attended by over 600 residents, along with over 120 volunteers and stall providers from across the community.

The free-to-attend festival included performances from young members of the community, and a host of games and stalls, a selection of food and drinks, as well as family-friendly workshops hosted by local organisations.

The health and wellbeing of communities is of paramount importance to us and we believe this is the bedrock of strong, resilient communities.

In the autumn of 2023, we teamed up with the ‘DIY SOS: The Big Build’ team to transform a dilapidated caretaker’s cottage in Latton Bush, Harlow, into a state-of-the-art new community hub for Essex-based mental health charity, Butterfly Effect Wellbeing (BEW).

We also donated a specially adapted open-plan SoloHaus home to create a spacious new garden room for the charity to hold health and wellbeing classes, including meditation, yoga, and holistic healing. This additional space allows the charity to run paid-for sessions, generating additional revenue to support the charity’s core services.

Aired as a Christmas Special in December 2023, the show documented the project from conception to completion. BEW now has the capacity to provide services for up to 200 people suffering from mental health issues every week, a dramatic increase from the 10 people the charity was able to support prior to the start of the project.

We contribute to local businesses and those in work by bringing prosperity, strengthening the backbone of communities, and empowering individuals with career opportunities.

In 2023 we launched our Supply Chain ‘Lunch & Learn’ sessions recognising that around 80% of our supply chain is made up of medium, small, and micro enterprises who would benefit from knowledge-sharing sessions.

We also extended our support to MIT Skills in its bid to supply GLA-funded ‘Skills Bootcamps’ for residents of Hounslow. The initiative aimed to provide construction training to unemployed individuals over a period of six weeks. The bootcamps resulted in 22 work placements, with three of the formerly unemployed and homeless participants securing employment, and another securing an apprenticeship.

Having launched Foundation 200 in December 2019 to mark our 20th anniversary, we have now completed a total of 81/200 homes. A further 32 SoloHaus homes are allocated to developments and awaiting planning consent, with another 30 of the homes committed to partners waiting to secure land. This year, planning delays resulted in fewer SoloHaus homes being delivered as part of the programme than anticipated.

Projects were successfully completed for Bristol City Council, and Emmaus Cambridge, a charity offering its formerly homeless residents employment opportunities, personal support, and a place to
call home.

We handed over the homes to Emmaus in January 2023 at the charity’s premises in Cambridge. We were joined at the event by Mrs Julie Spence OBE, The Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Selwyn Image, the founder of Emmaus Cambridge, and Sir Terry Waite KCMG CBE, the president of Emmaus UK, who commented:

At the 2023 Inside Housing Development Awards, Nevendon Place in Basildon, a SoloHaus development, won the Best Partnership award. We accepted the award alongside our partners on the project, Basildon Council, Peabody, The Salvation Army, ECD Architects, Keegans, and Homes England, who all contributed to the success of the development.

We are confident all 200 homes will be delivered and providing safe and secure homes to people who would otherwise be homeless by the end of 2025.