Procurement organisation Procure Plus is planning to create the first off-site factory dedicated to social housing which could see up to 1,000 homes produced in north west England each year from 2016.
According to a report in Inside Housing, Procure Plus has engaged consultants to assess the viability of developing the pre-fabrication assembly plant, which would cost £2-3 m to construct, to produce homes for the 40 local housing associations that form its client base in the north west.
The homes would be built in the plant for delivery to sites in an effort to cut construction costs at a time when government grant for social housing has been drastically cut and labour and materials prices are escalating.
The project is being monitored by the Homes and Communities Agency, which wants to increase off-site construction as part of it 2015-2018 affordable homes programme. Procure Plus has also enagaged the Building Research Establishment to assess its plans for the factory.
Mike Brogan, chief executive of Procure Plus, told Inside Housing: “The HCA is looking to encourage off-site manufacturing and it appears we are looking at this at just the right time. We are going to test the assumptions we have made and say yes or no: can we build homes for this amount of money and is this an investment we can make work?”
He added: “We would hope to complete that by the end of the calendar year and have the plant ready to go a year later, once we have found a site and equipped it and so on.”
To fund the project, Procure Plus is considering approaching a local enterprise partnership (LEP) – collaborations between councils and businesses that decide local investment priorities – or raising the funds from members and its own resources, paying back any loans within two to three years.
Fiona MacGregor, executive director of programmes at the HCA, said: “An advantage of this approach would be the more volume you produce, the more economies of scale you see, so it could well be worth investing in a factory. Additionally, once you get to site the construction tends to be much faster, so you get faster delivery.”
Procure Plus delivers housing developments of different sizes via its New Build Framework, using conractors including Bramall Construction, Wates Living Space, Willmott Dixon, GB Building Solutions and Kier Living. The homes are sold at economic rates to its social housing provider members, which include local councils and housing associations.
Procure Plus says it can deliver social housing projects well below Government published costs. From August 2012 to June 2013, its framework contractors delivered construction developments ranging from £1,124 to as little as £865 per sq m, including site development costs, but excluding land.
