In the autumn 2017 Budget, the government announced a presumption in favour of offsite construction by 2019 across publicly funded capital programmes, promoting it as the building method of the future. Offsite is being used on large-scale infrastructure projects like the Heathrow expansion, and the bridges for HS2, as well as in helping address the UK’s shortage of affordable housing.

With a drive across the industry to improve efficiency, the benefits are clear – but what of the risks? The industry is inherently claims-prone, and offsite construction could bring a new raft of risks and claims. 

The management and logistics of offsite differ completely from those of onsite construction. As offsite aims to increase the speed of construction, time on site is much shorter and so labour-related delays will become less prevalent. Problems with the supply of materials and transportation to site could replace more traditional delay events. Weather-related delays may not be such an issue with the greater use of offsite construction methods but, instead, failures in manufacturing processes could lead to significant delays and additional cost.

Innovative assembly techniques are likely to be prone to faults in processing, and replacement components may be expensive and not readily available. 

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