As well as providing a way to help tackle the housing crisis, offsite construction can also have a deeper social impact, delivering training and employment in factories and benefiting the wider community. This theory has been taken a step further in a pioneering new scheme.
Six months ago, Manchester-based procurement consortium Procure Plus launched Osco Homes, a wholly owned subsidiary aiming to deliver affordable houses constructed offsite at a factory based in HM Prison Hindley, Greater Manchester. The target for Osco Homes is to build two homes a week, and within three years reach output of 1,000 homes a year.
Prisoners have been trained as construction workers while working on a project to deliver eight factory-built bungalows for a site in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, owned by Together Housing Group. The project is due for completion in April.
As part of the scheme 10 prisoners were initially recruited. All are in the final year of their sentence at Hindley and are trained to build external walls, and floor and ceiling cassettes of panellised homes. They have been given construction training in plastering, joinery, kitchen bathroom fitting, provided by Novus, formerly the Manchester College.
Each prisoner is paid a salary for their work by Osco – over and above what they would usually receive from the prison – which is held in trust until after their release.
Once released they are employed full-time by Osco and are paid £19,000 a year.
Mike Brogan, chief executive of Procure Plus, explains: “The operation at Hindley has been a really big success and we’re now looking at doubling the space of the factory and also setting up factories at other prisons which we’ve had confirmed by the Ministry of Justice.
“The MoJ has given us a shortlist of their prisons to choose from, they will most likely be in the north west or maybe the north east. We’re not looking to rapidly expand, but in the next six months we’d like to have another prison operating the scheme and its own factory and then probably another to follow that, ideally three prisons in total.
“It’s not just about building homes, but providing training and opportunities to guys who may have taken a wrong turn in life but are keen to change. With the factory we’re providing this two-fold service.”
Of the 10 prisoners originally recruited, four of them have been released and are now working on site in Pontefract, helping to finish the work they started in the factory.
“All the guys who have been released are now working on site and improving their skills as well as earning a regular wage. You can see the pride they take in the work and the chances of re-offending for any of them is minimal,” says Brogan.
Kevin Ruth, deputy chief executive at Together Housing Group, said this personal impact and ability to make real change was the reason they become involved with the project.
“We asked ourselves, can we find a process to deliver properties quicker, but also has a positive social impact?
“We’ve had a long-term relationship with Procure Plus and we have total confidence in the end product.
Another consideration was the need to reduce development costs in the wake of rent reductions imposed by government. “So that’s why we looked towards offsite,” says Brogan.
While the higher costs of factory-made housing has been a barrier to its use, increases in the cost of traditional skills in the boom has tipped the balance in favour of Together Housing’s model, he adds.
“Working with the prison has also been beneficial and it has really engaged our own development team, re-energising them and they are so keen to make it a success. I’ve also been to the factory, I’ve met the lads and see how enthusiastic they are and what a difference it all makes, it’s a no brainer really.”
Ruth says they have been so happy with the outcome so far that they are doing appraisals on two other sites where they plan to use Osco Homes and the prison offsite factory.
