Offsite construction will kickstart revolution

Offsite construction will "change the structure of the industry", according to business secretary Vince Cable.

Dr Vince Cable was speaking to Construction News after a Laing O'Rourke-led consortium was awarded a £22.1m government grant towards research and training through the Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative administered by Finance Birmingham, a venture capital firm owned by Birmingham City Council.

AMSCI is a £125m national grant fund to develop supply chains’ competitiveness and create employment opportunities.

The consortium won the grant under a competitive tender.

It will be invested in Laing O'Rourke's manufacturing facilities at its Explore Industrial Park in Worksop, Derbyshire, as well as in skills training for offsite manufacture and building information modelling.

Speaking at Laing O'Rourke's residential development for Delancey at Elephant & Castle in south London, Dr Cable encouraged other firms to take up the advanced manufacturing approach to housebuilding and praised Laing O'Rourke for "leading the way".

He said: "[Volume housebuilders] have realised existing models haven’t worked, particularly around training, and they have put their hands up and acknowledged that the approach has been far too short term in the industry and they will hopefully adopt these techniques as well."

In total, the government is investing £104m through a four-year grant administered by Finance Birmingham to support training and research and development for advanced manufacturing of homes, buildings and infrastructure.

Laing O'Rourke's consortium partners include Arup Associates on design, the University of Cambridge on research and Airedale as a supply chain member.

Airedale technical director George Hannah said the firm was providing assistance on the M&E side by building products including sustainable refrigerants for pods being built by Laing O’Rourke off site.

Under the new way of working with Laing O'Rourke, products would be provided as part of an overall building solution, rather than sold directly to contractors or consultants, he added.

Bathroom pods are being installed at the Elephant & Castle site, where apartments are being designed off site and installed in a modular approach using precast building components.

Laing O'Rourke estimated the grant would help create more than 600 new jobs.

Source: Construction News