Oxford City Council has started the hunt for a contractor to build more than 2,5000 factory-built low carbon homes across Oxfordshire over the next 10 years.
The council’s housing company Oxford City Housing (OCHL) has issued a prior information notice inviting developers to a ‘meet the buyer’ event on Tuesday 15 December.
OCHL is starting the process of establishing a £750m modular construction framework for new housing schemes. It aims to acquire and develop 2,245 new homes on sites across Oxfordshire over the next decade, with 1,124 of these being homes for social rent and a further 301 shared ownership and other intermediate tenures. The council and housing company aim to open up the new framework to other social landlords and deliver more than 2,500 homes in total.
OCHL and the council are currently looking at four options for delivering sustainable homes:
- a 40% carbon reduction from 2013 building regulations
- a 70% carbon reduction from 2013 building regulations
- Passivhaus equivalent standard
- zero carbon for regulated and unregulated energy, with a preference for low embodied energy
OCHL intends to issue pre-qualification questionnaires and then an invitation to tender for potential suppliers between January and June 2021.
Developers wishing to express an interest in working with OCHL should register through the ProContract portal.
Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, cabinet member for planning and housing delivery, said: “Oxfordshire needs high quality, low carbon homes and we’re interested in working with contractors that can manufacture offsite with good economies of scale. If you’re a builder who wants to know how we intend to deliver more than 2,500 new homes in the next decade and are interested in being part of that journey, please register for our ‘meet the buyer’ event on 15 December.”
