To ensure that quality of design can be effectively measured and marketed EPOA are working with the Building Research Establishment to develop proposals for an Essex Home Quality Mark.

About the Home Quality Mark

Developed by BRE, the UK's leading building science centre, the Home Quality Mark is based on years of building standards experience, and is part of the successful BREEAM family of quality and sustainability standards.

The Home Quality Mark (HQM) has been created to serve the UK’s house builders and the householders who buy and rent new homes. HQM will help house builders to demonstrate the high quality of their homes and to differentiate them in the marketplace. At the same time, it will give householders the confidence that the new homes they are choosing to buy or rent are well designed and built, and cost effective to run.  

The Home Quality Mark will do this by providing impartial information from independent experts on a new home's quality. It clearly indicates to householders the overall expected costs, health and wellbeing benefits, and environmental footprint associated with living in the home. In short, HQM helps everyone to fully understand the quality, performance and attributes of a new-build home.

More information about the Home Quality Mark can be found on the BRE website. 

Application in Essex

We know that in Essex many house builders are constructing high quality homes – perhaps exceeding Building Regulation requirements in some aspects – but may not have the appropriate measurements of quality to persuade customers of their benefits. The ambition is that the HQM tool is adopted as part of the Essex Quality Charter and Quality Panel work which is currently being developed by EPOA and will be launched later in 2018.

For more information on please contact essexdesignguide@essex.gov.uk