Modular homes are being touted as an option in the need to add more housing to the UK market.
They offer an efficient, cost-effective way building on a production line. And they can negate the effects of the fickle British climate by being put together indoors.
Ideal Homes, a recent start-up in Liverpool, has a second indoor production facility ready to build more unites just over a year since their first facility opened. They could turn out 1,5000 unites a year, adding to an increasingly prolific and innovate sector of the construction industry.
Modular factories in the north and the south
Legal and General make around 4,000 modular homes at their factory in Leeds, while Ilke Homes in North Yorkshire are hoping to increase their output to about 2,000. Further south, Berkeley Homes have announced their intentions to build 1,000 homes in their new factory in Ebbsfleet in Kent.
Developer Urban Splash have recently announced their intentions of adding modular units over two sites in the north-west if England. Contracts have been exchanged with Peel L&P for 347 units at Wirral Waters, and plans are in for 18 at New Islington in Manchester.
“With billions now being invested the UK government would like our industry to supply around 60,000 homes a year within a decade,” says Nick Fulford, CEO of modular housing brand nHouse.
“It’s going to be much more common to see all sorts of modular homes around Britain.”
Another way to see that modular homes could be seen more in Britain will come if you crane your neck upwards.
Homes England and Apex Airspace struck a deal in early 2019 that will see modular homes being built on top of existing properties across London. Five London boroughs – Tooting, Wanstead, Walthamstow, Putney and Wallington – will see 78 units, made on production lines, winched high into the air and into place on the roofs of suitable buildings.
The £9 million from Homes England comes from the government’s £4.5 billion Home Building Fund. And, in a move to encourage first-time buyers, the deal stipulates that all 78 must be priced within the Help To Buy threshold of £600k.
