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Places for People invests £100m in modular housing
Places for People, one of the largest housing associations in the UK, has signed a £100m modular housing deal with specialist manufacturer Ilke Homes.
In the biggest single modular housing deal agreed to date, Places for People will buy 750 homes built in Ilke’s north Yorkshire factory.
The association will build 500 of these homes on sites it already owns, while 250 will be for new schemes involving market and affordable housing.
The homes will be built through volumetric modular construction, which Ilke says will result in development on site taking half the time of traditional construction.
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David Cowans, chief executive of Places for People, said: “This is just the start for offsite manufacturing and as placemakers, we are going to invest even more in modular.
“We will implement efficient processes and new design techniques that not only raise the bar for the industry, crucially they also give people across the country affordable homes to live in.”
Ilke opened its factory in March with plans to build 2,000 homes a year. The organisation’s chief executive, Bjorn Conway, told Inside Housing in December that four in five of the homes built in that factory would be for social landlords.
Dave Sheridan, executive chairman at Ilke, said today: “A mature offsite manufacturing market could create an ‘Uber moment’ for construction, speeding up delivery, cutting costs and giving our customers unrivalled choice and quality.”
In July last year, Places for People, one of the biggest developers in the social housing sector, struck a £74m strategic partnership with the government’s housing delivery agency, Homes England.
According to Inside Housing’s Biggest Builders survey, the association expected to complete 9,083 homes between 2018 and 2021.
Sir Edward Lister, chair of Homes England, said: "This kind of innovation in the private sector is exactly what we need to see more of to disrupt the housing market and meet the country’s housing demand.”
Housing minister Kit Malthouse added: “Today’s announcement supports our urgent mission to deliver more, better and faster home construction to ensure a new generation can realise the dream of home ownership.”
Future of Work Festival
New for 2019, Inside Housing’s Future of Work Festival will bring together HR and organisational development professionals from the housing sector to discuss and explore the challenges of how to successfully evolve towards the working environment of the future.
Seize this opportunity to rethink your workforces and workplaces by reconsidering the roles of individuals, organisations, automation technology and how society will approach work.
Assess and benchmark your business strategy with the leaders in the housing sector:
- Defining the Future of Work: what does it look like, what will be the implications, how do you rethink your workforce strategy?
- How to embed Electronic Data Interchange into your workforce, attract the widest pool of talent, be authentic and innovative, keep your workforce happy and productive, and position your brand
- Identifying, assessing and closing the skill gaps: what skills will be required in the future and how do you prepare for the undefined?
- Appealing to and maintaining a multi-generational workforce: how to address differing career aspirations, expectations, behaviours and values
- How best to implement the best tech, for example, big data, artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain and the Internet of Things. How will this change workplace skills and wages? How do you evolve towards a ‘STEMpathetic’ workforce?
- Providing your HR and OD department with the right skills and toolkits to revise talent, organisational structures and business models. Be social and environmentally friendly, and data driven – investing in disruptive tech, skills training and ethical use of tech
- Promoting well-being and employee experience
- Introducing training and learning as part of the career path
- Embracing agile working – understanding how flexible and alternative working arrangements can boost productivity
The festival will take place on 17 September, at Westminster Bridge, County Hall in London.
