Welcome Notes Good Morning ladies and gentleman It

Welcome Notes Good Morning ladies and gentleman, It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here today for the HBF Utilities Conference 2017. My name is Craig Ferrans, the new HBF Technical Director and I have now been in post for 6 months and has been a hectic time as you may imagine but really enjoyed meeting our members. As you can see the conference is well attended - I never thought the world of utilities would be so interesting! Before we start todays conference there is some general house keeping that I need to make you all aware of, there is no planned fire alarm today so if the fire alarm does sound then I would suggest that it is the real thing and ask that you make way to your nearest fire exist. Could I please ask that you put your mobiles on silent during the presentations I would like to thank all of the sponsors that have contributed to make today happen, organised by Ian Wilkinson - on behalf of the HBF - Id like to say a huge thank you. 1

Welcome Notes I attended the annual Health and Safety conference last week and one of the presenters made an interesting observation and I thought it was a perfect fit for today’s event. Did you know that it took 75 years for the telephone to reach 50 million users 13 years for the television to reach 50 million users 4 Years for the world wide web to reach 50 million users 3. 5 years for Facebook to reach 50 million users Yet only 35 days for Angry Birds to reach 50 million users 2

Welcome Notes Thinking about todays conference - the world moves at a much faster pace, coupled with living in a digital world where everything is needed like yesterday, with more innovative solutions and products coming to the market - ensuring that they are fit for purpose, we have greater expectations on quality, achieving delivery, getting everything on budget and on time to allow us to move forward for the next land investment opportunity. With new infrastructure and utilities right at the start of this challenging process and in order to meet ever increasing housing targets, we all need to communicate and work together. 3

Welcome Notes In the last three years, housing supply has increased by more than 50%, taking the overall level of output above 200, 000 for the first time since before the financial crisis. The huge boost in housing supply over the past three years has been driven by substantial increases in investment from a small number of larger house builders. It is estimated that around 20 companies were responsible for the majority of the growth in output achieved in the post-recession period to 2016 and these companies overwhelmingly have plans for further growth in the coming years. … BUT WE NEED TO GO EVEN FURTHER AND FASTER • Best estimates of housing need, suggest England requires 240, 000 net additional homes per year whilst Wales needs 12, 000 homes per year over a sustained period • In the last 15 years average house prices have increased at more than double the rate of average incomes • The number of home owning 25 -34 year olds has fallen from around 60% at the turn of the Millennium to just 36% today • 1 in 4, 20 -34 year olds are living at home with parents 4

Welcome Notes but there are many advantages: - house building generates unrivalled economic, social and environmental benefits Recent house building increases have helped to create 200, 000 new jobs subsidised tens of thousands of affordable homes and contributed more than £ 1 bn in additional funding for important social infrastructure such as schools, health services and community facilities. Calculations suggest that in total the industry now helps to sustain 705, 000 jobs. So therein lies our challenge ladies and gentlemen - as I explained right at the beginning, Infrastructure and utilities are right at the start of this journey and its impact plays a significant contribution to the delivery for new homes in every way and can we keep up with it all? 5

Welcome Notes As you I’m sure you have all realised from the agenda, we have a stellar line up of industry experts at hand today - presenting to you - their insights into the future of housing delivery. So to start the conference I would like to welcome Steve Wielebski from WA Consultancy and I am very pleased to say a Senior Consultant to the HBF. 6