Mount Anvil: “The cost-of-living issue is fundamental to our sustainability strategy”

Mount Anvil “recommitted to focusing exclusively on the London market” in 2021, after being hit by a “perfect storm” of problems at Capital&Centric’s Kampus development in Manchester, which was its sole project outside the capital. Mount Anvil typically works in joint venture partnerships with housing associations, buying the land, developing, building and marketing the properties. Because they do everything, Bate says they work on a relatively small number of projects at one time – just six to eight schemes.

“We work with a housing association and then they buy all the affordable housing. They tell us what they think they need – and the most pressing need is social rented housing… We would say with a lot of pride that social housing is growing as a proportion of what we build.”

While Bate understands why many social value metrics rely on financial proxies for happiness and investment: “I also think it sucks”

The balance of the residential is traditional build-to-sell – Mount Anvil doesn’t do build-to-rent or help-to-buy. “We haven’t done any. We just don’t do any.”

The move into estate regeneration also represents a move into placemaking for Mount Anvil, and the experience of Covid coupled with their emphasis on resident-engagement has led to a shift in their approach to the use of their ground-floor spaces and the design of green spaces.

“What we rapidly observed was residents saying, ‘my immediate locality is more important’” says Bate. “People felt more enthusiastic about spending time with their neighbours… of using green spaces as sociable spaces.”

At the Friary Park Estate in Acton, now rebranded as The Verdean, the clamour for communal spaces and services has seen the creation of a hub – with a communal kitchen, potting shed, residents’ lounge and cycle hub – that serves all tenures, both social and private.

“It’s the new neighbourhood,” says Bate. “That’s the biggest transformation.” Other post-Covid changes at The Verdean include the ground-floor office space reimagined as a maker-space and artist studios, while the residents’ desire to shop locally has made them reconsider the retail offering, where “the affordability of products is a key decision criteria.”

Plans for the redevelopment of Friary Park Estate were hit by vocal opposition in 2021, when the height of the redevelopment sparked the formation of opposition group Cap the Towers which objected to plans to increase the height of the residential towers – the group has since declared a partial ’victory’ in its campaign, which included action to save Friars Place Green as common land. Ealing Council has since announced it will be increasing its scrutiny of high rise buildings. 

A fresh planning application for The Verdean development was submitted in April which would supersede the 2020 planning permission, and is pending consideration by Ealing. The revised application increases the provision of total homes from 990 to 1,228 by increasing the footprint and massing of four blocks, and increasing the height of one block to between 12 to 17 storeys. Cap the Towers has announced it is examining the 368 documents in the planning application and will oppose any further increases in height. The new planning application designates 37% of the overall total number of homes as affordable: 773 private-sale homes, 237 social rent homes, 70 London Affordable Rent and 148 London Shared Ownership intermediate tenure homes.

Mount Anvil’s response to the opposition campaign has been to underline resident support. Bate says listening to residents has led to a lot of changes – the new submission includes new resident and community facilities – and adds that their approach to engagement has rapidly evolved since the Covid lockdowns, which increased the value of face-to-face conversations.

Mount Anvil uses HappyOrNot for community engagement – the company responsible for those ubiquitous happy-face pads in airports and toilets

“Covid, in forcing us to rely on digital, has shown us some of the flaws in our digital strategy. Those in-person conversations are a very different experience. We were getting less people turning up to drop-ins virtually than when we were doing them physically. And some older people were less willing, or less able to, even participate digitally.”

As a result, Bate says they now opt for a rich mix of outreach tools: “A knock on the door, coffee in the lounge, newsletters on paper, translated into a relevant language and handed out, as well as all the digital platforms.”

As for measuring sentiment, Mount Anvil takes a different approach than some of its competitors. While Bate understands why many social value metrics rely on financial proxies for happiness and investment: “I also think it sucks”.

“We focus on feelings first,” says Bate. “That’s our metric…. We concluded that feelings matter first.”

Uniquely, they work with HappyOrNot – the company responsible for those ubiquitous happy-face pads in airports and toilets, with four green, pink and red buttons featuring four different emoticons – big smile, little smile, little frown and big frown.

“We focus on feelings first,” says Bate. “That’s our metric…. feelings matter first” 

“Those terminals and that four-point system is at the heart of how we evaluate resident sentiment at any event. How did you find the event itself? Slap the pad. And how do you feel about the development itself?”

“We don’t need pound equivalents, because we are measuring change over time,” says Bate. The importance is making it simple and fun to gather feedback.

With the rise in energy bills, community feedback is now informing Mount Anvil’s ambition to “use good design to improve the financial standing of residents by reducing the increase in housing costs.”

“The cost-of-living issue is pretty fundamental to where our sustainability strategy as a business has gone,” says Bate.

The developer is looking at how they can insulate and make design changes to reduce energy use – and energy bills – as well as running workshops to support residents in using less energy.

The big prize is “reducing energy use in a way that marries social and environmental benefit.”

“Reducing energy use is important in terms of the environment and hits the wallets of the residents we work with – it’s a win-win,” adds Bate.   

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