Sustainability Policy

We have our own unique approach to supporting sustainable communities. For the last 60 years our strategy has been to both live and work within our local community as a trusted developer creating family homes using local resources. We also provide permanent local employment for a skilled workforce and we promote employee welfare, apprenticeships and training. Priority is given to locally sourced building materials and products which also helps to support the local economy.

The key themes of our company’s sustainability strategy are:

Community building

Sustainable development is much more than supplying new housing; our philosophy is to promote thriving communities;

• We have a company policy to supporting local communities with charitable donations and sponsorship mainly targeted at youth sport and recreation.
  • In Mersea where sailing is very much at the heart of the community, Mersea Homes have given their long-standing support to the prestigious Annual Cadet Week for children, we also sponsor other local community initiatives through the Colchester Hockey Club, Golf Club and Cricket Clubs. But we also help out with numerous other non sport community projects and events.
• We are committed to helping to provide community facilities to ensure our new schemes offer a high quality of living
  • At ‘The Grove’ we are working in partnership with the local community to provide a new village centre with over 6 hectares of landscaped public open space, a new community hall and fully equipped playground as part of their scheme for 160 new houses.
  
  New community open space
  • Working with the Town Council and the Borough Council, Mersea Homes has provided public open space and much needed football pitches at a level far in excess of what normal planning policy would require as part of their scheme for just over 100 new homes at ‘Wellhouse Green’.
• We believe the design of new housing should be based on a sound understanding of what defines the best examples of local character to create a true sense of place and we are very proud to have received awards for this.
  
  Mersea Homes wins at the 2008 Architectural Awards
  • In the 2008 Colchester & RIBA Architectural Awards, Mersea Homes’ project at Wellhouse Green was the winning project in the ‘Sense of Place Category’.
  • We have won numerous NHBC awards for quality building and good site management.

An approach to community development involves:

• 
  Mersea Homes winning NHBC Award
  Engaging with local communities to promote active involvement in shaping new developments. This has taken many forms, but it is always based on listening to local people to enable proper judgments to be made. Our key projects are based on design briefs, which in turn are based on public consultation, information gathering, public displays and discussion sessions. We always strive to work in partnership with stakeholders and planning officers so that the final documents can be presented to Councils for adoption.
  • Mersea Homes are the largest stakeholder in land at north Ipswich where 5,000 homes are intended to be built over the next 20 years. As part of that process we have taken part in all the consultation processes and have held our own to inform the general public of our ambition to deliver a mixed use development with significant community and sustainable travel improvements
  
  Community planning workshop
  • Mersea Homes facilitated a Village Design Workshop which involved both members of the public and key stakeholders. During the event held in the local school residents made a radically new layout proposal by suggesting the new open space should be at the centre of the new housing and this idea was then accepted by the Council.
  • Working with the stakeholder group established by Colchester Borough Council, Mersea Homes played a key part in the presentation of the two stakeholder events at the new Community Stadium which was held as part of the Consultation exercise as a background to the new Supplementary Planning Document. The events produced a lively debate and will inform future decision making.

A response to tackling climate change

We are keen to understand and learn how we as a country will be tackling climate change and how especially it will affect house building. We believe it will be important for us to take an active role in the local debate on global warming so that we can play our part. However our firm belief is that the starting point will be sustainable locations to reduce carbon footprint by –

• Proposing new development in locations which are well served by public transport, therefore reducing the need to travel by car.
• Commissioning special studies to examine and compare travel distances to key facilities such as schools, employment, leisure facilities and shops from a range of potential development locations to identify the most travel efficient options.
• Designing new homes which promote the use of natural resources during the lifetime of the building and providing advice to house owners on how to live in their new homes in the most energy efficient way.
  • Stuart Cock, managing director for Mersea Homed delivered a speech to Colchester’s 2020 Local Strategic Partnership conference citing the Professor Stern’s Review of the economics of climate change.

Helping to protect the environment

As a responsible business Mersea Homes have implemented a series of measures to improve the sustainability of their construction sites

• Considering both the environmental and amenity impacts of construction materials throughout their lifecycle;
• To manage construction sites to prevent pollution and reduce waste, energy and water.
• Utilising sustainable construction techniques
• Using the Code for Sustainable Homes / BREEAM as a framework for sustainable procurement
• Recycling waste from construction sites

Providing enough decent homes which families can afford

The leaders of all the major political parties in the UK all agree there is a worsening shortage of homes caused by both a slump in the number of new houses built each year and an increase in need due to population changes, put simply there are many more births than deaths and this will not change for the foreseeable future. Mersea Homes believe no community can be considered to be sustainable if a decent home is not provided for us and our children to live in. Therefore even in difficult economic times we strive to deliver energy efficient family homes for both the private and 'affordable' market in sustainable locations as part of a local solution to the housing shortage.