Today a planning application for what is claimed to be the UK's biggest fully modular council housing and apartment scheme to date has been submitted by Leeds City Council and housing company United Living.
If approved, the scheme at Leeds Meynell (in Holbeck) will see 28 homes built in under nine months, beating the average construction time for a development this size of nearly 24 months, United Living said.
United Living is the principal contractor, working with Premier Modular and William Saunders Architects.
Manufacture of the new homes is planned to begin in late spring 2019 at an off-site facility in Brandesburton, East Yorkshire.
The property mix is 14 apartments in two blocks, with 10 individual two-bedroom homes and four, three-bedroom homes. Premier Modular will produce each entire module off-site, adding brickwork cladding, roofing, and placing the finishing touches to the exterior frames before transportation to Leeds.
Leeds City Council's executive member for communities, Councillor Debra Coupar, said: "This project is a modern method of construction, changing the delivery of our housing and allowing for us to develop housing opportunities that our residents and communities want and need. We're looking forward to seeing the houses once they are completed."
Helen Francis, business development director (North) for United Living, said that "with radical solutions needed to fix the UK's national housing shortage, this could be a trailblazer for others to follow."
The first deliveries of homes to the Leeds site are anticipated as early as midsummer this year.
Access to the site will be granted at the same time as manufacture begins, to allow for preliminary works including drainage and pile foundations. Filling joints, including staircases, and finishing touches will take place in-situ.
All homes and apartments are scheduled to be in place by late autumn, with the final stages of construction to include the laying of roadways, paths and driveways. Exterior works including fencing and landscaping will then be completed by February 2020.
Image: A render of the proposed scheme courtesy of United Living
