This week Countryside Partnerships sponsored a Housing Forum led event which discussed the value of diversity in housing in the design and delivery stages.
The event was hosted at Building Bloqs in Meridian Water, Enfield. Stephen Teagle opened up the event as Chair of the Housing Forum to a packed-out audience of 80 guests. He discussed the work that the Housing Forum is doing through the Future Leaders Network in promoting young talent and encourage diversity in the housing discourse and touched upon Countryside Partnerships’ involvement at Meridian One where Partnerships are delivering over 1,000 new mixed tenure homes, a skills academy and community gardens.
Jamie Ratcliff, Executive Director at Network Homes and Deputy Chair of The Housing Forum talked through the work that The Housing Forum has been doing on equality, diversity inclusion (EDI) policy, monitoring membership, event organising and speaker participation and also explained how this event was initiated, and in particular Enfield’s public commitment to collaborate with teams with a diverse makeup.
Eleni Stathi, Architect at HTA Design LLP – the lead architectural team for Meridian One - chaired the panel discussion, inviting Yemi Aladerun, Senior Development Manager at Enfield Council, to explain the procurement processes that the Council have put in place and how successful these have been on the Meridian Water project.
The panel also included Countryside Partnerships’ Associate Director for Production, Bradleigh Coker , who was asked to explain the work which his team are undertaking at Partnerships’ Meridian One development and how the supply chain fits into the EDI and localism agenda.
Fellow panellists Father Angus Ritchie of The Centre of Theology & Community and Lucy Smith of HTA Design talked through the importance of including the voices of the local community in the housing delivery process and the tools that can be used to increase participation.
The audience were invited to participate in a Q&A session, and the event was rounded off with a walking tour which took guests on a 1 mile trek along the River Lee navigation canal to Partnerships’ Meridian One development, providing an opportunity to check out the progress on site and pay a visit to the recently launched Meridian Skills Academy and the community garden with reps from the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London (CONEL) and The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) on hand to answer any questions.
