Index directs Wilcon to best sites

Wilcon Homes has officially launched the environmental auditing procedure that will dictate how it develops existing sites and where it buys land in the future. The Wilcon Index allows the housebuilder to check the sustainability and environmental acceptability of sites.

“It takes the rhetoric out of an emotive subject and allows us to demonstrate that we are buying the right site,” says Martin Leyland, strategic land director with the housebuilder. The 4500-homes-a-year builder has spent 10 months developing the Index with planning consultant Roger Tym & Partners and its value is being recognised by the housebuilding industry. “We have already had a housebuilder trying to buy into it,” says Leyland.

The audit, carried out on computer, entails measuring a site against ten sets of evaluation criteria, all of which can be weighted according to local concerns, Government planning guidance or other policy. “It is not just a question of putting ticks in boxes,” says Leyland.

The ten sets of criteria cover: transport; proximity of services; location; land use; landscape, planning and environmental; employment (the balance between jobs and labour supply); mixed use; social inclusion; deliverability (freedom from infrastructure, physical, ownership and legal constraints); and marketability.

Each of these ten key criteria is broken down into a series of further points, and each point demands yet more intensive soul-searching. For example, considering the availability of a railway station means considering secondary points such as level of services, reliability, distance and car parking provision.

Points are given a score of from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). Some answers, like the distance from the railway station, can be easily converted to the 1-5 score, but for others qualitative and quantitative judgement is required.

There is no definite pass or fail mark. “If a site is in the Green Belt it could score low, but compared to other sites it could be the best option,” says Leyland.

The housebuilder has already piloted the auditing tool on four sites and it is now applying it to its portfolio of 69 sites. Wilcon uses the Index software in two stages: a simple assessment for landbuying, and a more in-depth assessment for promotion of a site.

Wilcon is considering demonstrating the Index to local authorities and hopes that eventually it will become an industry standard. “It is as a comparative tool that it is most useful,” says Leyland. “We hope this becomes the objective test.”