Kent leading the way for pre-fab home construction

KENT has been named one of the UK’S pre-fab homes hotspots, building 700 a year from modules made in factories.

The nascent industry, which is being promoted by the Government as a way to build homes more quickly, is adding 15,000 properties a year across the UK, according to research by law firm Pinsent Masons. Although there is no central register of these homes, the Kent Developer’s Group found that 700 have been built in the county in the last year.

Paul Wookey, of investment agency Locate in Kent, said: “This type of build is starting to feature heavily across the county, particularly in north Kent, and it’s helping developers and local authorities to meet the growing demand to build new homes fast.”

One of the hotspots for this kind of building is Medway, where there are three developments being built using offsite construction, in Chatham and Capstone.

Dave Harris, Medway Council’s head of planning, said: “This type of house construction is 40pc quicker than traditional methods and from the day a pod arrives it can be ready to welcome new residents within four weeks.” This is helpful for councils as they are under pressure from central government to hit housebuilding targets quickly.

Earlier this month, Berkeley Homes announced it was setting up a 160,000 sq ft factory at Gravesham in Kent to create these modular homes. The housebuilder has been using units created offsite at its development in Kidbrooke, south-east London, and is likely to manufacture so-called “volumetric steel-framed modules”, which can be “zipped” together once on site to create a home.

Other builders, such as Persimmon and Crest Nicholson, also use pre-fabricated elements in their homes, and Legal & General has spent £55m to set up a factory near Leeds. The capacity to use offsite construction to build homes is limited because there are a small number of factories that can produce the housing, and partly as they require a lot of upfront investment.