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Report: Khan should take the lead on offsite
London mayor Sadiq Khan should step up his activity in building homes off site, the London Assembly’s planning committee has said.
A report on offsite construction, published by Nicky Gavron, the committee’s chair, called on the mayor to provide leadership on offsite construction, to adopt a ‘manufactured housing design code’, to consider building factory homes on land owned by Transport for London, and to set up a procurement framework specifically designed to provide offsite housing for London.
The report noted that offsite manufacturing has failed to take off in England, largely because of a lack of demand. Factory owners have struggled to get prices down without enough orders being placed. At the same time, builders have been reluctant to buy the homes at current prices.
The Greater London Authority (GLA) could use its strategic partnerships with housing associations to provide the necessary scale and demand to drive prices down, according to the report.
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Ms Gavron said: “Meeting London’s housebuilding target is a huge task and traditional construction techniques will only take us so far. Offsite manufactured housing is an innovative, forward-looking and exciting way to close the gap.
“The lack of a single design standard or mass market demand has held back the sector’s growth. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to work collaboratively with investors, developers and policymakers at a time where experts, central and local government are all calling for the same thing to happen. The mayor is ideally placed to respond to the report’s recommendations and call to action.”
Mark Farmer, chief executive of Cast Consultancy, wrote a damning government review on the construction industry in October last year.
He said: “This timely report sends an unequivocal message to the mayor of London that now is the time to show strong political leadership to establish a mainstream precision-manufactured housing market in the capital. It could underpin ambitions not just for housing, but wider economic growth.”
In response to the report, James Murray, deputy mayor for housing and residential development, said: “We need to take advantage of innovative ways to boost homebuilding to tackle London’s housing crisis, and a greater use of offsite or precision manufacturing must play a big role.”
He made note of a £25m loan that the GLA has recently awarded to Pocket Living, which makes use of offsite construction, and said similar schemes would be explored.
He added: “The mayor’s draft London Housing Strategy, which will be published next month, will set out the mayor’s further plans to support much greater precision manufacturing of homes.”
