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The UK’s housing crisis is starting to feel a bit like a never-ending issue. Here’s how the story revolves:
- The UK doesn’t have enough homes for the people who need them.
- Affordable and homes for social rent are in particularly short supply but we can’t build homes quickly enough without cost and quality penalties.
- We need a faster and more reliable way to build those homes.
- We HAVE a faster and more reliable way to build those homes.
- But procurement behaviour doesn’t change and sticks to known methods.
A new product from Innovaré aims to break that cycle and speed up the supply of new social housing.
Building Differently
The Government has recognised that modern methods of construction (MMC) are essential if we are to make a serious impact on the national housing shortage. The hope was probably that a ‘presumption in favour’ backed by extensive research by KPMG among others would be enough to tip the scales in favour of MMC. This would encourage procurement teams to move away from the familiar methods that have been found wanting.
But change has been slow to happen, and the Government isn’t about to force the issue by mandating the use of offsite methods in publicly funded building programmes.
Change is Coming, In Fact It’s Here
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that change has been slow. We are, after all, talking about a fundamental shift and there’s a natural wariness when any of us is faced with radical change. And it’s easy to point the finger and tell people they need to do something different – but maybe it’s up to the industry to offer solutions that make the change easier to adopt.
And that’s why we have developed Flexihomes by Innovare. These are a range of standardised (but customisable) designs of houses and apartments that are affordable, sustainable, high quality and easy to build. We believe that the Flexihomes by Innovare product offers a positive contribution to stepping up the supply of social and affordable housing in the UK.
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