By building homes where people want to live, and investing in the environment, we help to create long-lasting sustainable communities.
Our expert team aim to provide high quality service and homes to our customers throughout their journey with us.
We build homes at affordable price points. Positioning our sustainable developments in the areas our customers want to live, creating communities and making the property ladder accessible for all.
In 2022/23, we handed over affordable and social homes with a revenue equivalent to £116m and most recently £60m of Private Rented Sector (PRS) homes. We will continue to grow this part of our business to serve a wide range of customer requirements.
We also seek to educate our customers on the affordability benefits of our new homes. Customers could save an average of £2,200 per year on energy bills, gain access to Green Mortgages and new build only schemes to help them purchase their new home.
Our senior management team work hard to build relationships with key external stakeholders such as mortgage lenders, to ensure our customers can access innovative schemes and the best new mortgage products. Our independent panel of new build specialist mortgage brokers are also available for our customers, free of charge, to help advise our customers on the best borrowing options to suit their affordability needs.
We put our customers at the heart of all we do. From initial enquiry through to reservation, construction, completion, and post occupation customer service; we have expert staff dedicated to deliver best in class customer experiences every time.
We design and build homes to improve our customers’ quality of life. That means, meeting high expectations in the quality of our homes, in the range of choice and in the entire customer experience.
We understand that many of our customers are environmentally conscious. Our printing suppliers use FSC accredited paper, and we have eliminated single use plastic from all merchandise. This includes giving our customers ‘eco’ friendly hampers as a gift when they move into their new home.
We aim to give our customers a high-quality home. We have a comprehensive quality checking process called the Avant Gold Mark. This allows us to certify the quality of our homes against internally developed quality standards, the NHBC standards and the New Homes Quality Code standards.
We aim to ensure that our customers enjoy every aspect of living in their new home and that there will be no issues. Our homes are constructed by many different trades in accordance with relevant strict regulations. But we understand that faults can happen, and sometimes there might be a minor issue that only becomes apparent once the home is occupied.
Our customers have access to our comprehensive after-sales care service to resolve any concerns within 30 calendar days of logging their issue. Our customers receive a two-year Avant warranty, alongside a 10-year NHBC warranty.
We are also an active member of the New Homes Quality Code, providing reassurance that we are committed to delivering a first-class customer service.
We are committed to investing in the local communities that we build our housing developments.
Community infrastructure
We are committed to contributing £70m to local community infrastructure via various initiatives
88% of our developments have directly built or contributed to new community infrastructure.
Sustainable travel
91% of our developments are built within 400m of public transport.
70% of our developments have travel plans, sustainable travel solutions or have committed to contribute to local sustainable travel initiatives e.g., £1m contribution to extend the 444 service from Leeds to Wakefield.
Local people
We directly and indirectly support 32,057 jobs via the development of 10,341 plots on current active sites, according to the HBF.
We give local sponsorships to community projects such as local football teams and cricket clubs.
During our design and planning process, we aim to understand our impact on local communities, listening to feedback to ensure our developments serve their needs.
We often conduct health impact assessments; this allows us to understand and consider the effect of our proposed development on both the health and health inequalities of local communities so we can respond appropriately during the design and planning process.
We also engage with local people via numerous methods such as letter drops, local media, by presenting our proposals, answering community questions, and by attending exhibitions held by Parish Councils, Neighbourhood Forums and Council Members. We encourage written feedback which we can incorporate into our Statement of Community Involvement report.
Take a look at our upcoming Community Consultations here.
We participate in the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), currently completing phase 3.
Bureau Veritas UK Limited is acting as our lead assessor, providing insight into our energy usage, and providing recommendations for further energy efficiency initiatives.
We engage with the industry in numerous ways, with our Group Head of Planning leading our relationship with the Royal Town Planning Institute.
This allows us to contribute to industry policy and strategy discussions, forming part of the Institute’s response to key consultations, topics, and government proposals.
Furthermore, this important relationship helps to support all our planners with Continuous Professional Development training to ensure we remain at the forefront of the industry.
We aim to support a strong, responsive, and competitive economy by utilising land of the right type, in the right places, at the right time, to support growth, innovation, and productivity.
We also seek to create strong, vibrant, and healthy communities by:
- Providing a sufficient number and range of homes that meet the needs of present and
future
generations.
- Fostering well-designed, beautiful, and safe places, with accessible services and open
spaces to reflect current and future needs, supporting community health, social and
cultural
wellbeing.
We work with local and national planning policies and guidance, including the National Planning Policy Framework, to help us to meet our objectives.
We are committed to Biodiversity Net Gain, supporting positive community environments via the creation or preservation of natural areas.
All our homes are registered with either the National House-Building Council (NHBC) or Premier Guarantee, providing customers with a 10-year construction warranty.
