Summer Ideas Exchange

The Healthy Homes Hub Summer Ideas Exchange is a dynamic event bringing together housing professionals, industry experts, and academics to explore how we can create healthier, more efficient homes. With a focus on best practices, research, innovation, and real-life experiences, this event offers a unique opportunity to collaborate, share knowledge, and drive meaningful change in housing.

As we navigate the intersection of health, efficiency, and sustainability, this event will provide thought-provoking discussions, practical takeaways, and networking. We aim to inspire new approaches to housing design, management, and policy.

This is an opportunity to: - Learn from leading experts and practitioners in the sector - Hear real-life experiences on the impact of housing on health and community - Discover practical solutions to create modern, efficient homes - Explore technology-driven innovations shaping the future of housing - Network and collaborate with like-minded professionals and organisations

The event concludes with networking drinks, offering a chance to connect, reflect, and build partnerships to advance the healthy homes agenda.

Join us as we work to #MakeHousingBetter!

10am – Arrival, Coffee, and Networking

10:30 – Welcome and Introduction - Jenny Danson

10:40 -11:10 – Lived Experience: Supporting a Family in an Unhealthy Home Speaker: Maggie Bosanquet We begin the day with a powerful personal story. Maggie shares her experiences supporting her daughter Lucy in an unhealthy home and the profound impact it had on her family.

11:10-11:20 – Grab a drink and move to break outs

11:20-12:20 – Choice of Sessions:

Best Practice: Why Riverside Created Healthy and Modern Homes?

Speakers: Tessa Barralough and Billy Cliffen, Riverside

Chair: Trina Chakravarti

Delve into best practices for designing and maintaining healthy homes. Learn how modern housing can foster improved health and thriving communities.

Asthma Friendly Homes

Speaker: Connie Jennings

We will explore effective strategies that WHG have put in place with the NHS to improve indoor air quality and reduce asthma triggers primarily in children and adults who have been diagnosed with a respiratory condition for healthier living environments.

Building Resilience: Preparing Social Homes for Climate Challenges

Speaker: Richard Flemmings, Map Impact. Panel

Chair: Andy Cameron-Smith

Highlighting the specific climate challenges that social homes are most likely to face, including increased risks of wildfires, flooding, extreme heat, and severe wind events, whilst also identifying and discussing targeted strategies to mitigate them effectively

12:20-1:05 – Lunch

Enjoy networking opportunities and refreshments.

1:05-1:50 – AWS Perspective on Healthy Homes Speaker: AWS Representative, TBC

1:50-2pm – Move to break outs

2-3pm – Choice of Sessions:

The Research Perspective: Creating Healthy Homes

Speaker: Annalise Johns

This discussion explores how housing quality impacts health, highlighting innovative tools and strategies for healthier living environments. Annalise shares her expertise, from shaping health policies to leading projects that connect housing conditions with public health. The conversation covers challenges in retrofitting for net-zero, breaking industry norms, and designing homes that support well-being at every life stage.

Creating Impactful Housing – Health Partnerships

Speakers: Sarah Roxby, ED Customer and Community and Leanne Brown, Care and Health Manager, Wakefield District Housing (WDH)

How can housing and healthcare collaborate to create healthier homes and stronger communities that improve lives while reducing costs? In this session, Sarah Roxby shares how WDH’s partnerships with health services are delivering real results for tenants, enhancing well-being, and ensuring more sustainable tenancies. She will explore where to start when developing a jointly-funded programme with health, uncover commercial opportunities that benefit residents, housing providers, and healthcare, and highlight key strategies for long-term success.

Powering the Future: Why Every Housing Provider Needs an Energy Strategy

Speaker: Parick Berry Together Housing

With rising energy costs, stricter regulations, and growing sustainability demands, having a clear energy strategy is no longer optional for housing providers – it’s essential. This session will explore why a proactive approach to energy management is key to reducing costs, improving tenant well-being, and ensuring compliance with net-zero and EPC standards. Learn how to develop a strategy that not only meets regulatory requirements but also enhances efficiency, unlocks funding opportunities, and future-proofs housing stock. Discover practical solutions, from renewable energy integration to smart technology, that create affordable, sustainable, and healthier homes for tenants while delivering long-term financial and environment benefits.

3:15-4:15 – Breaking Barriers: A Relational Approach to Retrofit Success in Social Housing

Speaker: Professor Philip Brown, Huddersfield University

Professor Philip Brown, leader of the Healthy Housing Initiative at the University of Huddersfield, unveils the Facilitating Retrofit in Social Housing Toolkit – a practical, structured guide developed in collaboration with Together Housing Group. This toolkit, born from an Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership, addresses one of the most significant barriers to decarbonising social housing: tenant resistance.

Professor Brown will explore how tenant engagement, trust-building, and organisational change go hand-in-hand in delivering effective, long-lasting retrofit solutions. Attendees will gain insight into how a relational approach can ease the pathway to achieving net-zero ambitions while simultaneously tackling fuel poverty and improving tenant well-being.

4:15-4:30 – Close followed by Networking Drinks

Connect with other attendees to exchange ideas and build relationships.