OFFSITE RESEARCH
HERE WE GO AGAIN? A NEW BEGINNING OR THE SAME OLD STORY FOR OFFSITE? The offsite industry is undergoing a massive state of change and development with interest levels higher than ever before. Research being undertaken via Leicester’s De Montfort University by Professor Mark Lemon and Yann Bomken of Poplar Consulting, is trying to pin down how permanent and lasting this interest may be. • The embracing of innovation and more complete formats, such as full volumetric, has been seen primarily within the repeatable module market and to a lesser extent within public sector residential development • The private sector is focused on delivering a return on investment for their shareholders – not on addressing the acute shortage of housing in the UK market. This is often seen as the job of government and is expected to be delivered through Registered Providers and Local Authorities
1 The early 2000’s saw a growth in the number of large automated factories that were built to deliver into the construction market. These included companies such as Advanced Housing Limited (AHL), Corus Living Solutions (CLS), Unite Modular and Space 4 – the first three no longer exist and the fourth has a radically different product. In their place we now have new startups in Legal &General, Barcelona Housing Company and the recent announcement of Keepmoat working with Elliott Group via Ilke Homes. The research authors interviewed a number of individuals who had played varying roles within the offsite sector over many years. The intention was three fold – to elicit why the sector had not taken off in the manner anticipated, to establish the challenges facing
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the sector today and to explore what changes might facilitate sustainable growth into the future. Here is an overview of responses and are subject to the authors’ interpretation. Market Change Offsite product has been directed primarily at the repeatable module market and has latterly moved towards addressing the need for supply within the private and public residential housing sector. A number of considerations were raised with regard to this change: • The private housing market has tended to be served by lower end technology products i.e. timber frame, with the motivation for switching to new materials or formats being driven in response to specific problems
• The rise of the private rented sector (PRS), as opposed to open market sale, is refocusing development away from initial capital cost. Speed of build is seen as crucial as this leads to quicker revenue generation. Last Time Around There was some consensus among the respondents that the key to offsite success is the surety of an order book. One of the reasons the larger organisations survived for so long previously was due to the level of internal market demand. AHL supplied Barratt Divisions, Unite Modular to their parent company with student accommodation and CLS had the security of 8,000 modules for the MoD’s Project Allenby Connaught. Space 4 continues to supply their parent company Persimmon Homes. While there were a number of reasons for the demise of these and other companies, their inability to command a sustainable external order book was an important factor.
WWW.OFFSITEMAGAZINE.CO.UK | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017