HEALTHIER HOMES: Our Director of Operations, Rick Thompson, is joining MapImpact CEO, Richard Flemings, give a joint presentation at the forthcoming Summer Ideas Exchange organised by Healthy Homes Hub. The pair will highlight the use of GIS and data to support climate change resilience and create healthier homes. The exchange is a free, in-person, one-day event, taking place at the Amazon HQ in Shoreditch, London, on Friday 19th June. Among those attending will be housing providers and hub members including policymakers, academics and supply chain organisations.
“Hub members are keen to see healthier living environments incorporated into housing,” explains Rick. “That’s exactly what GIS and data can support. Richard and I will emphasise the role that geospatial technology can play in improving the scope for healthy housing outcomes.”
The event is being held in Central London at Amazon Corporate Offices, 1 Principal Place, London EC2A 2FA, 5 minute walk from Liverpool St. Station.
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM
10:30 AM – 10:40 AM
Andrew Cameron Smith, Healthy Homes Hub
10:40 AM – 11:00 AM
Maria McCafferty
We begin the day with a powerful personal story. Maria shares her experiences.
11:00 AM – 11:10 AM
11:10 AM – 12:10 PM
Ryan Dempsey, TCW
In recent years, safety in social housing has risen sharply up the agenda, driven by new regulation, increased scrutiny, and rapid growth in data and technology solutions. But with more tools, more data, and more pressure: are we actually improving safety outcomes, or simply increasing complexity? This session will offer a fresh perspective on balancing innovation with simplicity, and how to ensure safety strategies deliver real-world impact for residents.
11:10 AM – 12:10 PM
Richard Flemmings, Map Impact, Rick Thompson, ODC, Thomas Wharton, Regenda Homes
Retrofit has traditionally focused on the fabric of individual homes, but climate resilience requires us to look beyond the front door. Heat, flooding, green infrastructure, and the wider urban environment all play a critical role in shaping how homes perform and how residents experience them. This session will explore how housing providers can use geospatial data to better understand climate risks and make more informed decisions about homes, neighbourhoods, and investment priorities. It will include an introduction to the role of mapping and place-based data in housing, highlighting how these tools can support healthier homes and stronger climate resilience. It will also feature a case study from Regenda Homes, sharing how the organisation is using geospatial analysis to understand heat risk across its homes and communities.
11:10 AM – 12:10 PM
Dr. Kieran Green, Plymouth Community Homes, Rachael Fox, Plymouth Community Homes, Professor Sheena Asthana, Centre for Health Technology
The Plymouth Living Lab is an innovative partnership between Plymouth Community Homes and the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Health Technology. At its heart, the Lab is about testing digital health technologies with and for the people who need them most — social housing residents often living with the greatest health inequalities. This session will explore: Co-design and engagement: how academics, health professionals, and residents have come together to shape trials, ensuring technology is empowering rather than imposed. Pilots in practice: early findings from two digital tools — Community Connections (tackling loneliness and building social networks) and behavioural sensors (detecting unusual patterns in the home and alerting carers/families to risks). Agency and empowerment: why this matters — for residents managing chronic conditions, for housing providers shaping services, and for tech developers designing solutions with people rather than for them.
12:10 PM – 12:20 PM
12:20 PM – 01:15 PM
Stacey Jarrett, AWS
Over eight years, HM Passport Office transformed one of the UK’s most critical public services while continuing to process millions of passport applications without interruption. In this session, Amazon Web Services will share key lessons from this journey, including how to modernise legacy systems, build in-house capability, and design for resilience by identifying and addressing failure points early.
01:15 PM – 02:00 PM
02:00 PM – 03:00 PM
Barry Lynham, Knauf Energy Solutions, Eilidh Hughes, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Social housing providers now have access to more data than ever from sensors, smart meters, and building performance tools, but much of it remains underused. This session explores what’s stopping us from turning data into better decisions. Moving beyond temperature and humidity, we’ll look at how emerging approaches, such as Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) measurement and smarter use of metering data, can unlock a more accurate understanding of how homes actually perform. We’ll discuss how better data could transform everything from prioritising retrofit works to improving financial models, reducing risk, and even offering residents clearer insights into their energy costs. This isn’t about new technology, it’s about making better use of what we already have.
02:00 PM – 03:00 PM
Dr Tiffany Yang, Bradford Institute for Health Research , Stuart Smith, Zehnder
This session shares early insights from a major NIHR-funded study led by the Born in Bradford programme, tracking over 400 social homes before and after energy efficiency upgrades. Combining real-time monitoring with resident feedback, the research explores how changes to insulation, heating, and ventilation impact indoor air quality, temperature, humidity, and ultimately, health outcomes. Drawing on the first winter’s data, Dr Tiffany Yang will present emerging trends across different building types and households, alongside early insights into how residents are experiencing these changes.
02:00 PM – 03:00 PM
Mike Craggs, Bromford Flagship, Keiran Poynton, Bromford Flagship, Mark Wood, AICO
We often say we are data led, focused on insight, early warning, and prevention. Yet the use of sensor data across social housing remains limited. This roundtable explores a simple but uncomfortable question: why? Is it tenant trust and consent? Uncertainty about the benefits? A lack of mandate or regulation? Upfront costs, or the bigger challenge that follows – knowing what’s happening inside homes and being expected to act? Sensor data can surface risks early: damp, poor ventilation, overheating, cold, and slow-building patterns long before a complaint is made. That knowledge shifts responsibility from “we didn’t know” to “we did know – so what did we do?” Perhaps this isn’t about technology at all, but organisational readiness. Moving from reactive services to prevention. From valuing data in theory to letting it genuinely drive decisions, priorities, and investment.
03:15 PM – 04:15 PM
Professor Rajat Gupta, Oxford Brookes University, Luke Hurd, CHIC
During the summer of 2022, over 3,000 excess deaths occurred in England and Wales, with significant increases during heat periods across homes, care settings, and hospitals. As extreme heat becomes more frequent, overheating is emerging as a major and unequal housing and health risk. This keynote explores the work of HEARTH, a transdisciplinary programme examining how homes can adapt to extreme heat while still meeting Net Zero goals. Vulnerable residents are often least able to adapt, unable to improve ventilation, add shading, or leave overheated homes, increasing health inequalities. HEARTH brings together climate science, building engineering, health, and social research to understand overheating risk from region to room. Through climate modelling, occupant surveys, and health impact analysis, it examines which mitigation strategies, from shading and ventilation to nature-based solutions and cool materials, deliver the greatest benefit.
04:15 PM – 04:30 PM