A Chinese contractor has teamed up with a UK housing association to deliver 25,000 prefabricated homes over the next five years.
Under the £2.5bn deal China National Building Material company will build six offsite factories around the UK in a partnership with Your Housing Group as well as renewable energy company Welink.
Factory sites are being looked at across the UK in places such as Scotland, south Wales, the north east, north west and in the south and south west. Five pilot schemes are set to deliver a total of 2,000 homes next year, with production ramping up to 25,000 homes a year by 2022.
The first scheme, in Liverpool, is expected to receive planning permission in January.
The joint venture will incorporate Barcelona Housing Systems technology to speed up delivery of homes. This uses precision-produced steel frames and modern composite materials to deliver developments that are low carbon and energy efficient in both their construction and in their operation.
The UK needs around 250,000 new homes a year, but last year only 170,000 were built, according to National Housing Association figures.
Stephen Haigh, UK chief executive of the new joint venture, said: “Our announcement is very much about identifying new opportunities and assisting government and other housing associations to achieve their housing aspirations as announced in the recent Autumn Statement, such as the £2.3bn infrastructure fund.
“It is also crucial that we work closely with local authorities to create mixed-tenure communities to cement our development model as the solution to their house building and development needs.”
Housing minister Gavin Barwell said: “This joint venture shows the potential modular construction has to meet the UK’s housing needs and help build a country that works for everyone.
“This government is committed to delivering a more diverse and innovative house building sector and our £3bn Home Building Fund will encourage more pioneering house building projects and partnerships like this one.”
In September Swan Housing Group committed to plans to build a new modular housing factory.
Two weeks ago, Circle Housing Group and Affinity Sutton announced plans to merge under a new name of Clarion Housing Group and build 50,000 homes in the next 10 years.
Comments
Comments are closed.
Brilliant and not before time to see modular housing take off in the UK after all we have been barking on about it for years. One small concern is how will the modular houses lend themselves to extending, another popular past-time in the UK?
This is certainly a very interesting development. However I’m always skeptical when firms use the phrases ‘steel’ and low carbon in the same sentence. Unless they are using recycled steel this is not a very low carbon. Even recycled steel is very energy intensive.
The most low carbon off site housing is timber either SIP sandwich panels, closed frame filled with insulation such as WarmCell or structural CLT with external insulation. Its difficult to get any other structural material with low embodied energy than sustainable European softwood.