Cold, damp and other home hazards have been in the news recently, following the tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak in 2020. Michael Gove has asked every local authority to present information on the condition of their housing stock, and what they are doing to tackle poor conditions. But, without visiting a home or installing monitoring devices, how can you know which homes are at risk?
Using our proprietary machine learning algorithms, Bays Consulting can predict which homes in your area are at highest risk of hazards like cold, damp and mould. The Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) recognises 29 home hazards which can pose a risk to life. They are rated from Category 1 to 4, with Category 1 hazards requiring immediate remediation.
Our algorithms have been tested with local authorities across the UK who are strategically planning how to tackle these hazards. Our predictions, tailored to your area, give an overview of the condition of your housing stock and highlights high-risk homes. They have been tested across different local authorities with our partner, Parity Projects.
The results are visualised in our secure online dashboard, Bays Pulse. You can choose a hazard from the dropdown menu and scroll through the results. The map function allows you navigate street by street, showing results for individual properties and a heat map of the most at-risk areas. Quick view graphs show you the proportion of hazards by tenure or property type, while full results tables let you peruse the data to strategically plan your next steps. Further data such as the Index of Multiple Deprivation, Census 2021 results or your own data can also be visualised in additional tabs, giving you and your team a holistic view of the challenges your area faces.
To tailor the predictions to your local area and improve accuracy, we need a little bit of data from yourselves, namely a list of any hazards you have identified in a property over the last 10 years. Understanding the type and prevalence of hazards that affect your particular housing stock helps us to refine and test our algorithms. Predictions can still be generated without this data, but the accuracy is usually lower. So whether you’ve received a complaint about a hazard or carried out an inspection, you can use our pro-forma to easily and securely share the information we need to give you the most accurate results. All work will be covered by a data sharing agreement and impact assessment.
Our standard offer provides predictions for up to six hazards in one local authority or similar boundary area, with results returned within three working weeks. This offer can be tailored to suit the needs of any council, health and social care trust or housing developer. We want to help you demonstrate that you are making continued efforts to tackle poor housing conditions.
Contact us for a free demo and a no obligation quote. Bays: it’s maths, not magic.