Plenty of room at the top
A £12 billion bonanza to boost the number of affordable homes comes at the right time for the market, says DEBORAH STONE
NEWS OF A £12 billion Government boost for affordable homes comes as pioneering modular homes companies are gearing up to increase production in Britain. Among them is fledgling technology and urban development company Skyroom, which is offering local authorities and housing associations the funding and expertise to build flats for NHS workers, teachers, firefighters and other essential service workers in London.
The award-winning company aims to design modular homes for the “airspace” above existing buildings using a structural exoskeleton – a bit like fancy scaffolding – that will be integrated into the original building to look like it has always been there.
Existing residents wouldn’t have to move out, keeping costs down, and disruption would be kept to a minimum because the new homes are factory-built off-site and can be installed within a few days.
Even more impressive, Skyroom ( skyroom.london) has a £100 million fund that it will launch in October available to local authorities and housing associations, who just need to get the planning permission. “We make money because we
license our technology for these consulting services,” says chief executive officer Arthur Kay. “We will manage from project conception to completion.”
Aged 29, Kay could be accused of being young and inexperienced but this is his second business (there are two other co-founders) and the third organisation he has set up. He founded the clean technology and manufacturing business bio-bean, which recycles coffee grounds to produce solid bio-fuels; set up the thinktank Fast Forward 2030, to inspire entrepreneurs to be a force for good, and has been recognised by the UN as a sustainable development goals pioneer.
He is also a design engineering lecturer at Imperial College London and UCL, where he is entrepreneur in residence.
So perhaps he and co-founders Lewis Kinnear, with 15 years’ experience of designing and delivering homes and urban design projects, and James Gerrard, an experienced developer and financier, are onto something.
New airspace development laws and changes to planning rules, says Kay, mean “the stars are aligning on the overarching strategy”.
By 2030 the company aims to have provided 10,000 Skyroom homes in London starting with its prototype development of 15 homes on a building it has bought in Bermondsey, south-east London.
As part of the development, existing residents benefit from upgrades such as new lifts, roof gardens and other communal areas, says Kay. “We are unlocking the value of the building,” he explains.
Of course, modular building is not new. The Royal Borough of Greenwich ( royalgreenwich.gov.uk) has signed a
£300 million contract for new-build council homes using modular construction, which will deliver 750 affordable rent homes across 60 sites over the next five years in its Greenwich Builds scheme. These homes,
a collaboration between provider A&E Elkins ( aeelkins.co.uk), architects shedkm ( shedkm.co.uk) and manufacturer Ideal Modular Homes ( idealmodularhomes. co.uk), can be factory-made in four days and installed on site in eight hours, minimising disruption to nearby residents and pollution from construction lorries.
Similarly, modular housing company ilke Homes ( ilkehomes.co.uk) has teamed up with housing association Orbit ( orbit.org.uk) to provide 25 factory-built affordable homes in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire.
Orbit operates in the Midlands, East and South East England, and this is its first use of modular housing, although North Yorkshire-based ilke Homes is a leader in its field and opened new offices in Birmingham, London and Bristol this June.
“Scaling-up the country’s delivery of affordable housing is clearly crucial, but more than anything it is about speed, quality and partnering with forwardthinking housebuilders such as Orbit,” says ilke Homes’ executive director Matthew Bench.
“This scheme will be delivered in roughly half the time of traditional construction.
“With the homes precision-engineered in our Yorkshire factory, they will benefit from superior air tightness and energy-efficiency.”