our story
2018 Shaping A Shared Vision
Bristol Housing Festival launched in 2018 to explore bold solutions to Bristol’s housing crisis.
We were driven by the housing challenge and a desire to act. Inspired by the spirit of the Great Exhibition of 1851, it brought together innovators, communities and industry leaders to explore new ideas for sustainable, affordable and community-focused homes.
The festival began with a 17-day exhibition in central Bristol, opened by Kevin McCloud and visited by more than 6,000 people. Modular homes and pioneering housing solutions demonstrated what the future of housing could look like, while events and collaborations sparked fresh conversations and partnerships across the city.
The goal was simple: spark a positive conversation about what might be possible over the next five years, bringing together public, private, and community partners to tackle housing shortages and test Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).
‘We are at the beginning of a revolution in housing design and construction. The festival will make Bristol the centre of that revolution, not just for the UK, but possibly for the world’
Cllr Paul Smith
LESSONS LEARNTFirstly, MMC provides an innovation context as it requires a fundamental change to the current methodology of delivery. Legal, finance, cash flow, warranties, procurement, planning and project sequencing are all affected, creating an opportunity to repurpose the industry from a site-based, fragmented sector into a manufacturing-led, integrated, and high-productivity sector.
2019 First Public Showcase
The following year, we went on to develop our first programme, which featured a two-week series of public talks, industry discussions and exhibitions in Bristol city centre. Open every day throughout the two weeks, this was an opportunity to learn more about the Bristol Housing Festival.
The showcase included displays and details of the different projects we’ve been involved with and at their different stages. We also showed a series of short films throughout the two weeks including interviews with key people involved, projects going on in the city, and addressed key issues that form part of the housing need in the city. The festival began with a 17-day exhibition in central Bristol, opened by Kevin McCloud and visited by more than 6,000 people. Modular homes and pioneering housing solutions demonstrated what the future of housing could look like, while events and collaborations sparked fresh conversations and partnerships across the city.
‘Last year’s Festival was an exciting event that stimulated new thinking and debate. This year’s event promises to take that even further. Real projects have already begun in the city on the back of the Festival.’
Jonathan Turner, Head of Housing at Bevan Brittan
LESSONS LEARNT This is no easy task, but if the first two years of the Housing Festival have shown us anything, it’s that collaboration to innovate around aligned objectives and underpinned with explicit values (united, generous, courageous and hopeful) will create a route to tackle these very complex and urgent issues to create hope and rebuild trust in housing.
2020/2021 Finding Our Place
In response to COVID-19, the Festival transitioned to a three-week Virtual Expo, an industry-leading series of virtual events that brought together experts in the housing and construction industry, local government, champions of sustainable communities and residents to discuss housing and communities in the UK.
Innovate UKfunding for Enabling Housing Innovation for Inclusive Growth.
Focussing on ‘demonstrator’ builds, looking at 9 projects all utilising 9 MMC systems. Over 400 homes. Learn about the system/governance/expertise - it was a time for us to really learn and disseminate, recognising where we see the barriers to MMC in Cultural, practical and procedural challenges:
Innovation Gap –How can LA/RPs engage with the Offsite sector?
Policy Gap - Aligning with this opportunity to deliver homes.
Value for Money/Economic Case – Traditional thinking around the economic case. Rethinking viability.
‘we’ve learned so much, How could we create a toolkit?’
Bristol Housing FEstival, 2021
LESSONS LEARNT Covid19 has shone a light on the brokenness and disparity of our current model. We cannot continue doing what we’ve always done.
Progress requires working across public, political and industry groups in an age of austerity where appetite for risk is challenged by constrained budgets. We offer a mechanism to ‘find a way through,’ to de-risk and create the right conditions to ‘go first.’
2022 Continuing The Learning Journey For Bristol
We are facing a significant structural deficit in our supply of social housing, and this demand has only increased with the cost of living crisis and pressure from immigration that has exacerbated existing crises. In Bristol, more than 1100 households are in Temporary Accommodation (TA), which is almost double pre-covid numbers, and while TA should be a short-term emergency solution, Shelter reports more than 35% of these are there for more than a year. This is creating a subsidy loss in Bristol City Council of more than £9 million per year.
Added to this, the Commons Home Affairs Committee was told that it costs the UK £5.6 million a day to house refugees in inappropriate accommodation.
‘The economic crisis is vast, but the human crisis, whilst often hidden from the headline figures, is even more costly. When we consider them holistically, we can begin to find real solutions.’
Bristol Housing FEstival, 2021
LESSONS LEARNT …
2023 A New Chapter
The end of the 5 year programme, we began our next chapter as ‘Housing Festival’ with a simple question:
‘How do we increase and build more social housing?’
Housing FEstival, 2023
Thinking about the key questions:
-Where does the land come from? Plenty of small sites in local government ownership. We must understand how to bring that land into use
-Who is going to build?
LESSONS LEARNT Each local authority seems to be suffering from the same issues. There are opportunities for us to help nationally, not just regionally.
No one agent or actor holds all of the solutions. Bring expertise and wisdom together to tell a shared story.
2024The Playbook
Social Rent Housing at a Pace Playbook Released
It is a collaborative project drawing on insights and case studies from over sixty organisations. Built Different It was described as a call to courage, compassion and urgency, highlighting the critical opportunity for a human-centric, outcome-led approach that embeds values into the design and delivery of new homes.
New Homes in New Ways
New Homes in New Ways exhibition and Summit. The exhibition told the story of how Modern Methods of Construction can accelerate the supply of new homes, with an emphasis on delivering the social rent housing needed at pace amidst the current housing emergency.
Building Better Community of Practice
Merging of Building Better and Housing Festival as Building Better: Community Of Practice
‘How do we increase and build more social housing?’
Bristol Housing FEstival, 2021
LESSONS LEARNT While we will continue our work in Bristol, the housing crisis is a national challenge, and our efforts now extend to consulting with other local authorities and considering the national picture.
Taking over Building Better: Community of Practice allows us to continue to carry out research, looking for opportunities and producing resources for the sector/keeping the conversation going.
Housing Festival is otherwise working on more of a consultancy basis, working on practical pilots, and larger scale projects.
Looking to 2025 and beyond…
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What people are saying
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Jez Sweetland, Housing Festival
“The New Homes in New Ways exhibition is an important opportunity to tell the story of how Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) has the potential to help address the UK’s severe shortfall of social rent homes and Temporary Accommodation crisis. Drawing on the collaborative Social Rent Housing at Pace Playbook, we look forward to sharing innovative case studies from across the UK that show that between us, we have all the required elements to start building the homes we need at scale and pace.”
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John Bonning, Building Centre
“The Building Centre is proud to showcase innovation and industrialisation in the built environment, and we are delighted to be working with Housing Festival. They are identifying the blocks in the UK housing sector and showing how to get over them. We want to turn up the volume and support the whole sector joining in to meet the challenge that could transform the lives of the many thousands of people in need of decent homes. This will bring benefits to the wellbeing of individuals and the economy of our country.”
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Kate Farrell, Crisis
“Crisis, along with many other organisations, are calling for 90,000 social rented homes a year to be built as we know this is what is needed to help sustainably prevent and end homelessness. We are pleased to be working with The Building Centre and the Housing Festival on the New Homes in New Ways exhibition to explore how Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) can play a role in supplementing traditional building methods and contribute to the step change in the supply of genuinely affordable homes that we are calling for. We are supportive of MMC to deliver good quality, well designed homes that meet the standards any of us would expect to live in and this is the test we ask others to use as well.”