Last week housing minister Mark Prisk confirmed he would set up a working group to promote housing assembly from large, factory-made components. The move comes almost a decade after John Prescott’s failed attempt to boost housing supply with a wave of £60,000 quick-to-build homes (AJ 09.08.05).
Aimed at reducing costs and improving speed and carbon efficiency, the prefab drive is the latest attempt to solve a deepening housing crisis, which saw fewer than 100,000 homes started in 2012.
It comes as major house builders including Barratt and Taylor Wimpey announced doubled profits, despite the industry’s failure to supply enough homes.
The focus will be on private rented, self-build and affordable housing and the working group will look at how to tempt investment into the sector and create market conditions which boost confidence in the method.
Prisk’s statement followed the submission of a government-commissioned Construction Industry Council (CIC) report on promoting offsite construction.
This called for new manufacturing facilities, tax incentives, a more stable regulatory framework, the release of ‘oven ready’ public plots and a new Institute for Future Housing Research.
CIC review participant Rab Bennetts of Bennetts Associates insisted mass production could boost environmental and space standards.
He said: ‘When you look at offsite solutions like Rational House in Hammersmith, you get a higher quality than you get elsewhere at the moment.’
Welcoming the announcement, Ben de Waal of AECOM – architect of the council-backed Rational House flat-pack scheme – suggested future grant regimes should be tied to local authorities and registered providers adopting offsite construction.
But Amin Taha of Amin Taha Architects, who took part in the European EMVS/ManuBuild prefab housing contest in 2006 was sceptical, condemning ‘part complete box housing craned and stacked from a lorry’ as ‘dated’ and ‘economically naïve’.
He said: ‘Since private house builders sell at market rates, landowners will swallow construction savings to leave developers with the expected profit margin. The end result is faster construction, higher profits, but not cheaper purchase prices.’
Design for Homes’ David Birkbeck said: ‘Prefab works well if you have extensive repetition. But we don’t do repetition in the UK because the country is made of oddly shaped pieces of land requiring sensitive responses. Whole house solutions have been talked about for 15 years but we have yet to see a successful example that has broken out from the niche.’