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Giant housing association pledges to use offsite manufacturing on all schemes by 2025
L&Q has pledged to ramp up its offsite construction delivery by more than fivefold as part of a new plan that aims to use some form of offsite construction in all of its new homes by 2025.
The organisation unveiled the plan as part of a new construction strategy for the next decade which also aims to deliver its first fully offsite home by 2028.
Wayne Hill, construction services director at L&Q, said the organisation had set out a roadmap over the past year aimed at increasing the use of modern methods of construction (MMC) from the 20% of development sites it currently uses it on, to all sites in the next six years.
The elements of MMC L&Q aims to use ranges from modular products such as balcony pods, kitchen pods and other components, to more advanced structural elements of the building.
L&Q has decided rather than partnering with one offsite developer for all its homes, it would instead be looking at a number of different suppliers to provide elements for its new builds.
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Mr Hill said that the group was currently in discussions with several suppliers and aimed to agree contracts in the coming months.
He said: “Short term, where we do know what we want in terms of MMC, we are going to put out frameworks with businesses. We will probably have an announcement in the coming months around the first few selections.”
However, the company has ruled out following other housing associations and setting up its own offsite factory – at least for the next few years.
A handful of housing associations have now set up their own offsite factories including South East association Swan Group and Accord in the Midlands.
Mr Hill said: “While it is the aspiration in every business to secure its long-term pipeline and would be wrong to rule a factory out, the honest answer is we don’t know whether that will work for us until we get further down the line.”
L&Q is one of the UK’s largest developing housing associations, with plans to deliver more than 100,000 homes across the next decade.
As part of the new strategy, the organisation has set up a new specialised group within L&Q which has been working over the past year to develop L&Q’s offsite roadmap. The group will now look at ways of adopting offsite across projects in the L&Q pipeline, as well as identify ‘adopter sites’ where the new methods or products can be used.
The team, which is currently five people but is expected to grow, will be headed up Lanre Gbolade who will be the company’s senior product innovation manager.
Mr Hill said that while it expected to create efficiencies through its new strategy, it has not yet put a figure on what cost savings it expected to make as part of the new construction strategy.
He said that L&Q would be willing to share its learning and expertise with other housing associations in the future but would want to get it right for L&Q first.
“In terms of handing over a methodology to other associations, like a franchise, we see that as one of our outputs in the longer term.”
Last week, L&Q revealed its surplus will be cut to £190m from an anticipated £340m this year as cost rises and a property downturn bite, but the organisation has targeted to not reducing its planned development.
A timelapse video showing offsite homes being built in hours at Housing 2018
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