The Minister for Housing has announced that a new State-wide builders’ panel is to be established to speed up the delivery of new and refurbished social housing across the State.
The Minister, John Carey, said the measure was the latest in a number of reforms to help boost the supply of social housing as fast as possible.
Mr Carey said the panel will primarily support the delivery of social housing but may be expanded to include other housing programs delivered by the Department of Communities.
“WA’s heated construction market has meant that we need to think innovatively about how we can accelerate the delivery of much needed housing for the community,” Mr Carey said.
“Establishing a new State-wide building panel is a great way of accelerating delivery as all participating companies have been pre-approved to deliver projects,” he said.
“The establishment of this panel will also assist companies, large and small, to build their capacity and benefit from our Government’s major pipeline of investments in social housing, which may enable them to employ more staff and take on additional work.”
The Minister said both construct-only and design-and-construct opportunities would be available for people appointed to the panel, and builders will be asked to nominate their capacity to deliver as part of the panel procurement process.
“Successful proponents that nominate for construct-only opportunities will be engaged to construct dwellings from an existing suite of designs,” Mr Carey said.
“For design-and-construct opportunities, successful proponents have the opportunity to work with an architect to develop appropriate designs,” he said.
“To encourage participation, particularly for smaller-scale and regional contractors, the process for qualifying for the panel will be simplified.”
He said the expression of interest will be advertised on Tenders WA in early July with builders of all sizes and from all regions encouraged to respond to the Request for Expressions of Interest process when launched.
“I encourage all registered builders, of all sizes, across the State to register their interest for this opportunity,” Mr Carey said.
