The housing crisis in the UK has become well documented and the reasons for it well discussed but one thing is very clear: in 2018 the crisis reached new heights.
There were 1.15m households stuck on social housing waiting lists throughout the UK last year and this was after the criteria for qualifying was tightened.
The government’s target for building new homes by 2020 is 300,000 per year however in reality in recent years output has fallen significantly below this target and although we have seen construction output increase by 78% over the past five years the failure to build for so many years has resulted in a still significant amount of catching up to do.
Moving into new methods of building and delivering homes has been a slow process for an industry that is risk averse but now many believe the problem is such that as an industry we need to move away from traditional construction methods towards modern methods of construction (MMC).
Indeed, it’s not just the industry pushing the move either as in July this year a report published by The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee warned the Government must unlock MMC potential to build homes quicker, more cheaply, while maintaining build quality.
However, the report also warned that they will need to act quickly to increase capacity and improve investor confidence if it is to have a meaningful impact on UK house building targets.
Despite the growing evidence of the need to change figures show only a small amount of construction uses MMC, leading many in the industry to call on the government to drive change by sharing the risk and incentivising investment in new construction techniques such as MMC.
There are signs of change however as Balfour Beatty has pledged to modernise its construction process by embracing MMC to boost productivity and plug skills shortages with an aim of reducing work undertaken onsite by 25% by 2025.
Plus, one of the UK’s largest housing associations L&Q is also leading the way after they recently announced that as part of a new construction strategy for the next decade they pledge to increase offsite construction delivery by more than fivefold with a goal of only using OSM in all of its new homes by 2025.
MMC certainly does in part seem to be an answer to the housing crisis as it aids speed of construction (30-50% faster), has higher levels of quality, reliability and longevity and offers the ability to provide more adaptable use of space.
