微密圈

What the MMC tsar says: 

Mark Farmer, a construction and real estate expert appointed as the UK government鈥檚 champion for MMC in housebuilding in 2019, remains optimistic about its future. He points out that the volumetric residential modular market which L&G contributed to is just a small part of the wider MMC market.

鈥淰olumetric is quite rightly a high profile example of MMC, but it is important to remember this is only one of seven defined categories and is actually one of the smallest current segments in terms of project adoption,鈥� he told Housing Today.

鈥淚t is also fair to say that there are success stories in residential apartment volumetric modular and there is a solid but small scale SME low rise volumetric market successfully operating across multiple market sectors, including residential, health, education and defence.  

On the same day that L&G Modular announced it was scaling down, L&G-owned Cala Homes announced it had acquired Taylor Lane, a leading timber-framing business

鈥淭he real challenge here is to understand the longer term ramifications of the L&G story for the large scale residential volumetric market, where L&G Modular were, whatever way you look at it, seen as a great hope for the future disruption of residential development.鈥�

He points out that at least half of the 230,000 new homes built last year had one or more of used in them.

He adds: 鈥淚t has also been largely overlooked that, on the same day that L&G Modular announced it was scaling down, L&G-owned Cala Homes announced it had acquired Taylor Lane, a leading timber-framing business.

鈥滻 see this as significant as the volume housebuilder sector starts to pivot to a world where the impending Future Homes Standard requirement to reduce operational carbon, ESG investor-led requirements to reduce embodied carbon and ongoing traditional trade skill shortages start to threaten business-as-usual delivery.鈥�

What a champion of traditional building says:

Mike Leonard, chief executive of the 微密圈 Alliance, which champions traditional building methods, believes the move by L&G is an opportunity for government and industry to reevaluate its wider building approach and the role of MMC within policy objectives.

鈥淭he L&G closure is obviously regrettable for the people who lost their jobs. But unfortunately, this is a case of public money being used almost indiscriminately to fund a particular method of construction over another,鈥� he told Housing Today.

Modular relies on building out of standard boxes, which plays havoc with planning requirements and public perception as to what 鈥�good鈥�&苍产蝉辫;looks like

鈥淭he thing about modular construction, apart from the fact that it relies heavily on Chinese steel for its raw materials, is it also relies on building out of standard boxes, which plays havoc with planning requirements and public perception as to what 鈥�good鈥�&苍产蝉辫;looks like in terms of the built environment. 

鈥淭he forcing through of this policy, if you like, which is supported by governments and Homes England and reflected in the grants that are given to local authorities, is fundamentally at odds with the market requirements. It is also out of touch with our need to build out of materials and buildings that are going to be resilient to severe weather events, and even wildfires. 

鈥淔rom an economic resilience perspective, we need to build using materials that are produced in the UK and use local skilled labour, creating jobs and opportunities. That speaks to the levelling-up agenda.

鈥淭he amount of conscious bias that has been shown by Homes England towards requiring 25% of construction in the public sector to be MMC, even though it costs more money, is damaging the British manufacturing industry. 

鈥淚n much the same way the UK government backtracked on its plans for smart motorways, it should think long and hard about its policies to drive construction in a particular way. It should instead focus on setting the policy objectives, performance objectives, your site for the built environment, and allowing industry to make the decisions as to how those should be fulfilled.鈥�

What an MMC architect says: 

Mike De鈥橝th, a partner at HTA Design LLP, a design-led, multi-disciplinary consultancy to the housing and regeneration sector, believes the problems faced by L&G also reflect the market stresses, but that the labour shortage in building means modular is more important than ever.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 really sad to see the troubles L&G have had and we have to celebrate them as pioneers. I think it just goes to show how complicated the operating environment is for everybody in the housing industry. The stats from the traditional sector are pretty shocking, with a number of traditional contractors going to the wall.

The L&G decision is by no means a death knell for modular housing

鈥淢odular housing is not immune from what we all face in housing, which is a really devastating combination of inflation, a government that has set itself against housing delivery and changes in regulation and so on. The economic impacts of last September鈥檚 mini-Budget and interest rates going up again this month are not going to do much for confidence generally. 

鈥淏ut the L&G decision is by no means a death knell for modular housing. In fact, if you look at the impacts of labour inflation on construction and the number of people now leaving the construction workforce, everything we already know about a lack of capacity is going to really hit us.

鈥淭he simple fact is we need more homes. We haven鈥檛 got enough skilled people entering the industry and, at the same time, we want to build in a more sustainable way. As a result, I would argue that modular has extremely good prospects for the future as we struggle to meet our building targets with a diminishing workforce.鈥�