Building Contractor Update
The Transition Homes team has bounced back from recent disappointments around loss of our original contractor, who withdrew in January, and are looking forward to developing a fruitful working relationship with a new contractor.
We hit the ground running and due to experience gleaned from the last process have run a streamlined re-tendering process looking at five different companies in some detail and weighing up which of them would best fulfill our requirements.
The main factors for us are whether the contractor has sustainability/ecological building experience and expertise, whether they are fairly local, that they have delivered housing schemes of a similar size, and balancing that with the requirements of funders. So there’s been a lot of time spent reading tenders and meeting with the companies to discuss how they would tackle the intricacies of this unique project.
We are now in the process of appointing a new contractor for stage 1 of the build contract. They were unanimously preferred by all the team for their enthusiasm and commitment to working with Transition Homes to deliver the houses at Clay park in alignment with our principles and financial constraints. They are a local firm based in Plymouth and have successfully completed many exciting projects in the south west including utilising some environmental building techniques and materials and they are particularly exciting about the highly sustainable approach to this housing scheme.
We are excited to begin this new phase working with them and continuing our general preparation to start on site in November.
Along side the tendering process much work continues on terms and contracts. We’ve had a very positive meeting with Triodos which has hopefully helped to pave the way to a smooth and efficient journey through the due diligence process with them.
Finally we are putting out a call for help with our day to day core funding, partly due to being delayed we are stretching the pot to keep things ticking over! So we would love to hear about any funding streams that we may not yet have come across or anyone who might like to make a donation however small. Small regular donations are really helpful and of course one off amounts will be gratefully received as well. We are a charity and so it is a great way to make an ethical donation and really make a difference to those in need of affordable housing in the local area. Please contact us at admin@transitionhomes.org if you think you might be able to help.
Transition Town Totnes 