A consortium of north-west housing associations led by Manchester City Council is hoping to drive higher uptake of offsite manufacturing by pooling demand to create a potential 500-home programme.
The Modular Allianz project will aggregate demand from up to 20 regional housing associations to create economies of scale, and is working towards a tender invitation in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The project hopes to stimulate the supply side of the offsite industry that has recently focused on the schools, hotels and prison sectors rather than much-needed housing.
Manchester City Council is acting as project lead, responding to the steady decline in the number of houses delivered in the Greater Manchester area and the drop off in the number of private developers active in the city region.
Under a funding arrangement with Innovate UK, the Modular Allianz project is also being advised by the University of Salford’s Professor Mohammed Arif under a Knowledge Transfer Partnership.
Arif, formerly of the University of South Florida, is an expert in offsite construction, who argues that the US experience shows that the set up and running costs for offsite manufacturers are often less than perceived.
He told Construction Manager: “The idea is to bring people together, pool their orders so we can go to the industry and provide true economies of scale. We will be looking for contractors, manufacturers or consultants – any groups that can form a consortium to take on this work.
“One of the reasons that so many offsite suppliers went bust is that they invested heavily in automation, which is expensive if you’re not feeding enough orders through.
“But if you look at a basic manufacturing facility in north America, you can establish a factory with about £0.5m and have it up and running in two to three months – it’s not that onerous.”
He said that the project also aimed to exploit Greater Manchester’s increased autonomy under regional devolution. “In the context of Devo Manchester, it’s very important to look at what this initiative can do to support devolution.”
Manchester’s figures suggest that nearly 15,000 homes were completed there in the peak year of 2007-8, falling to under 4,000 in 2011/12 although rising to over 5,000 in 2012/13. Meanwhile, there are around two-thirds fewer developers working in the region compared to 2005.
The housing associations are grouped into a number of consortia, which are led by Great Places, Wylvern, New Charter, Together Group and Riverside.
