Background
NAC demolished the Sheltered Housing Unit at Afton Court, Stevenston back in 2018.
In 2021/22, budget became available to develop the site at the former Sheltered Housing Unit to design and build amenity bungalows – two one bedrooms and four two bedrooms, utilising NAC’s standard house type plans. Amenity bungalows are self-contained accommodation designed to meet the needs of people with an accessible housing need. This formed part of NAC’s Strategic Housing Investment Plan.
In order to reduce the time on site and accelerate the programme, the units will be constructed in accordance with the Modern Methods of Construction, Category 1, Pre-Manufacturing (3D Primary Structural Systems) which is a systemised approach based on volumetric construction involving the production of three-dimensional units in controlled factory conditions prior to the final installation.
Following extensive market research, the decision was made to put a contract in place that would enable NAC to compare the costs and benefits of modern methods of construction to traditional methods. The outcome of this pilot contract will also inform future decisions regarding the procurement of construction related contracts for NAC.
This requirement was tendered though an invitation only quick quote via Public Contracts Scotland-Tender. The contract term is for a period of 28/30 weeks until November 2023 and the contract value is £1,193,880.93.
The Requirement
NAC declared a climate emergency on 11th June 2019, committing to take action on climate change and has set an ambitious target to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. In order to achieve this, NAC developed the Environmental Sustainability & Climate Change Strategy 2021-23 as a route map to achieve this target.
This project contributes to this target as it will deliver modern, energy efficient homes which will be built using cutting-edge and environmentally-conscious techniques.
One of the notable advantages of this modern construction method is its impact on the environment, as there is less waste compared to traditional building methods, and 67% less energy is used to produce a modular building.
Offsite construction is also less disruptive to surrounding businesses and residents and the quality is of a high standard due to factory-controlled quality control (QC) systems.
In addition, tenants will benefit from an ultra-insulated building envelope, and the installation of air-source heat pumps and photovoltaic (PV) panels. A building envelope is the physical barrier between the conditioned (interior) and unconditioned (exterior) environment of a building (which would include the walls, windows, roof, and foundation).
Additional environmental and circular economy benefits include the reduction in waste materials, with a larger incentive for contractors to reduce waste as units will be constructed in a factory setting with less local disruption in the form of noise, dust and site traffic and reduction in CO2 emissions.
Continue to Procurement Process - Embedding Sustainability Requirements
