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Housing association alliance seeks offsite firms for £2bn framework
A 23-strong group of housing associations is looking for offsite specialists as it prepares to launch a £2bn framework.
The Offsite Homes Alliance (OSHA) is looking for bids from volumetric and panellised manufacturers to supply to its members, which include Great Places, The Guinness Partnership and Yorkshire Housing.
The aim is to develop 10,000 homes a year using modern methods of construction (MMC).
OSHA launched in January last year, initially with an aim of delivering 9,000 offsite homes a year.
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The four-year national framework, expected to go live in December, will be administrated by Great Places on behalf of OSHA. MMC firms have until 12 October to register their interest.
Matthew Harrison, chief executive of Great Places, said: “Great Places alone has an ambition to deliver 9,000 new homes by 2028, and the OSHA framework will ensure that a significant proportion of these new homes are built offsite, driving better quality, value for money and decarbonisation through partnerships and aggregation of volume.”
At the time of OSHA’s launch, project director Mike Ormesher told Inside Housing that its aim was to “aggregate the demand across all of the registered providers involved” as “pilot projects are a nightmare for manufacturers to manage within their environment”.
On launch it had 18 members, which has grown to the current total of 23.
Nick Atkin, chief executive of Yorkshire Housing, said that the new framework will “enable us to develop a joined-up development process from factory gate to end of defects, harnessing the benefits of factory construction methods to realise members’ development aspirations”.
Separately, the National Housing Federation-backed Building Better alliance, which has 29 members, is also recruiting MMC firms to help social landlords deliver more offsite homes. In May, six firms were picked for a £600m framework.
MMC is seen as a quicker and more environmentally friendly way of delivering homes, but it has yet to be widely adopted by social landlords. The sector’s image has taken a knock this year following the high-profile collapse of Homes England-backed House by Urban Splash and house builder giant Countryside last month pulling the plug on a new £20m factory.
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