Published in September to seemingly little fanfare, Cast CEO, Mark Farmer and HTA Architects partner, Mike De’Ath’s report offering up a ‘blueprint for a housing led industrial strategy’ explained how modular construction could deliver upto 75,000 homes a year across the UK. What were some of the key themes to emerge?
This report sets out a bold ambition to seize on the opportunities presented by COVID-19 recovery planning to accelerate the role modular homebuilding plays in the future as part of a much more strategic approach to nurturing and mainstreaming the manufactured housing market.
The vision in the report sets out the potential to create a sector capable of delivering 75,000 new build homes every year within a decade through a series of interlinked, long term interventions by Government and its agencies co-ordinating demand stimulation alongside responsible capacity building. At its heart is the call for more tenure diversity to allow deeper market absorption combined with a new modular homebuilding national integration platform capable of aggregating and co-ordinating the market at scale such that clients and manufacturers can combine and collaborate in one place in a move towards more unified design and technical standards, quicker and larger data and evidence collection and the building of confidence in underwriting markets.
“We are seeking to create a platform for significant additional housing delivery and market diversification that also places modern methods of construction (MMC) and, particularly, modular manufactured housing at the heart of making quality homes. In doing so we envisage a major industrial strategy boost that moves us towards a greener future with resulting jobs and opportunities.”
The three linked objectives proposed in the report are:
• More Homes – a programme to
build 75,000 additional, high-quality,
manufactured homes a year by 2030.
• More Jobs – the potential for 50,000
high productivity and quality jobs,
ranging from SME level to larger
innovators, all helping to level up
regional economies.
• More Innovation – beautiful new
homes and skilled jobs that are
underpinned by fresh design and
manufacturing thinking, low and
zero carbon performance, cutting
edge embedded technology
and connectivity and much more
innovative thinking in tenure
products to maximise and stabilise
end market demand.
A wide range of consultees were spoken to from all four corners of the offsite sector – a ‘coalition of the willing’ – that represented the leading authorities and organisations in each sector referred to in the report. And on whose achievements and commitment form the bedrock of future housing delivery. “We have deliberately brought together consultees who represent an unprecedented and broad cross sector network. Leading residential investors, developers, modular manufacturers as well as local and regional government representatives with different political leadership, all with a shared interest in increasing housing delivery through factory production.”
