The sector’s first bulk order of fully off-site homes has moved a step closer, as a group of north west landlords seeks a project manager to oversee a potential 500-home programme.
Modular Allianz, a consortium representing 17 north west social landlords and Manchester City Council, hopes to jointly procure a bulk order to tap into the speed and quality advantage offered by offsite housing.
The Allianz hopes to have some of its projects onsite by the end of the 2015/16 financial year, and will now recruit a project manager, as it seeks to identify suppliers to factory-produce a total of 500 new affordable homes.
Off-site construction requires bulk orders to make it work economically, with suppliers requiring a continuous workload to maintain business.
The Allianz will standardise specification for the homes ‘as much as practicable’ to help secure cost efficiencies.
The group has identified sites for more than 500 homes across the north west by March 2018, with each partner committing a small number of schemes.
Peter Bojar, development director at Great Places Housing Group, said: ‘There is a push to increase the supply of housing and offsite is a way of doing that.’
The Allianz brings together Great Places Housing Group, Bolton at Home, Wulvern Housing, Equity Housing, Northwards, Riverside, Together Housing Group and JV North – a procurement chain of 10 landlords led by New Charter.
The group is working with offsite construction experts at Salford University and Manchester City Council.
The coalition government set a target of 20% of the homes built under the Affordable Homes Programme 2015/20 to be constructed in factories.
Mr Bojar said the plan was to order homes which would be fully built in a factory and then delivered to the construction site.
Accord Homes has had a timber frame factory since 2011, but full modular construction on this scale would be new territory for the sector.
Source: Inside Housing
