Living Space Housing Receives RoSPA Gold Award for Health and Safety Achievements

Solihull-based Living Space Housing has received a RoSPA Gold Award in the first year it has entered the internationally recognised scheme for high health and safety standards.

Organisations receiving a RoSPA Award are recognised as being world leaders in health and safety practice. Every year, nearly 2,000 entrants vie to achieve the highest possible accolade in the UK’s longest running awards of its kind. 

The affordable housing specialist launched to the market in 2019 and is currently constructing seven residential developments across middle England, with a number of additional sites in the planning system. The combined construction value of Living Space’s development portfolio is in excess of £72million, which equates to 580 affordable houses, apartments and bungalows. 

Paul Breen, Commercial Director of Living Space Housing said “The affordable housing sector has been impacted more significantly than the residential market as a whole due to the Coronavirus pandemic, with the number of new homes delivered down by a third. By working very closely with our supply chain, we have been able to minimise the disruption brought on by the pandemic and break ground on a new site every few months. We reassessed our business plan last summer and have significantly increase our production output ever since to help to meet the unprecedented demand.”

“The appointment of Andy Green as Head of Health & Safety in January 2020 was a key part of Living Space’s growth strategy. The timing could not have been more significant, ahead of the global pandemic and the new challenges faced in keeping our workforce safe. To be recognised just 12 months on with a RoSPA Gold Award for excellent safety management systems – and enabling us to operate with Covid-19 compliance – is testament to his work and the commitment by Living Space’s staff, contractors and customers to ensure everyone gets home safely to their families at the end of every working day.”

Julia Small, RoSPA’s achievements director, said: “The RoSPA Awards scheme is the longest-running of its kind in the UK, but it receives entries from organisations across the globe, making it one of the most sought-after achievement awards for health and safety worldwide. RoSPA is very proud of the achievements of its entrants, and with this award we recognise the best of the best, those organisations that have gone the extra mile, raising the bar for the delivery of safety in the workplace.

“Employees, wherever they may be, should be able to go to work safe in the knowledge that they will return home unharmed and healthy at the end of every day. Our RoSPA Award winners are central to achieving this goal. By entering, they are driving up standards and setting new safety benchmarks for organisations across the world. Currently, around seven million people are directly impacted by the RoSPA Awards, but the scheme’s global influence is even wider – with nearly 2000 organisations from 46 countries represented this year.”

Living Space’s seven live developments comprise 51 homes at its flagship Malvern Oaks scheme in the village of Cradley, on the outskirts of Malvern, Herefordshire, which is being developed in conjunction with leading affordable housing provider Stonewater. Another 48 homes are being constructed for Stonewater at the former Victoria Carpets Sports Ground in Kidderminster. 26 homes located off Britannia Way in central Telford, Shropshire are currently being delivered for GreenSquareAccord. Elsewhere in Telford, 38 homes located off Park Road in the Malinslee ward of the town, and 39 homes on former Homes England land at Majestic Way are being delivered for The Wrekin Housing Group. 40 affordable homes are being constructed for housing provider Paradigm on a site off Oak Farm Drive in the Oxfordshire village of Milcombe, while 36 homes are being constructed in conjunction with Hightown Housing Association in the village of Moggerhanger, Central Bedfordshire.