Pioneers assemble case for prefab

The Housing Forum is setting up a meeting with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Council of Mortgage Lenders in a bid to remove obstacles facing UK housing schemes using non-traditional build techniques.

"Three issues have to be confronted: public perception, warranties and valuation," said David Crewe, chief executive of the Housing Forum. The Forum's own cross-industry working group on off-site assembly, which is due to report next year, is also expected to play a part in helping to win greater acceptance for prefabrication. The case for taking more of the homebuilding process off-site was emphatically stated in the Government's Housing Green Paper.

More than half of the Housing Forum's 68 demonstration projects are using off-site assembly, yet a number of projects using an assortment of technologies both within and outside the demonstration project process are encountering some resistance, notably from planners and valuers. The Guinness Trust, Wimpey Homes and manufacturer Britspace have two demonstration projects in the pipeline, both using Britspace's modular build technology. Plans to develop the 50 modular homes on sites in Romford and Chelmsford have, however, been severely delayed by planning concerns, even though the non-traditionally built homes are entirely traditional in appearance.

Jeff Baker, director of The Guinness Trust said: "There is a political issue, in experimenting on social tenants. For some local politicians it is a bridge too far."

Crewe and Baker were debating the obstacles to taking homebuilding off-site at the Building Homes conference: The future for factory-built homes, in Bristol last month. The sell-out conference, held in association with the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction & Engineering Industry Group and sponsored by the NHBC and Lafarge, brought together today's pioneers of factory build and representatives from some of the regulators they need to satisfy.

Speaking at the conference, John Price chairman of the valuation panel at the Council of Mortgage Lenders, said that the benefits currently being put forward for factory-built homes would have little positive impact on valuation. "Opinion of value has to be in relation to the market - lower defects and better quality are factors that are not known to the local market," he said. "The valuer has to look at supply and demand of similar value properties."

Factory build continues to win converts. Architect Cartwright Pickard plans to set up an on-site assembly plant for a major scheme in south east London. Homebuilder Gleeson Homes is talking to a number of manufacturers with a view to developing a system of prefabricated wall sections. Modular manufacturer The Elliott Group hopes to have a dedicated plant making homes within three years.