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Large housing association eyes more partnerships in bid to build up to 500 modular homes per year
A large housing association has plans to partner with multiple modular developers as it aims to build up to 500 modular or volumetric homes over the next five years.
In an interview with Inside Housing, Mike Shepherd, director of new business and development at Vivid, said the housing association has an “aspiration to build 300 to 500 homes per year from modular or volumetric housing types over the next five years”.
It comes after Vivid signed a five-year joint venture with the Ikea-owned modular manufacturer BoKlok, in a move that it said would deliver roughly 300 homes annually.
Mr Shepherd said Vivid has identified three land opportunities that it believes it can promote solely as modular sites, two of which are in discussion with BoKlok and one of which it plans to bring to the market to find “an additional modular partner”.
He said Vivid is also working with BoKlok on one of its regeneration sites in Basingstoke “to look at the advantages modular housing can bring to us in terms of helping with regeneration and decanting”.
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The housing association intends to submit a bid to Homes England’s strategic partnership programme that will see 25% of the homes it builds being modular or volumetric.
The latest iteration of the strategic partnership scheme, which gives housing associations long-term funding for their development programmes, stipulates that a quarter of homes funded must be built using modern methods of construction (MMC), however this does not always mean modular.
While MMC can cover a broad range of construction techniques, Homes England is encouraging partners to consider using either three-dimensional units or large flat panel units constructed in factories.
When developing these types of homes, housing associations are able to apply for additional top-up grants to cover any extra costs.
“I think 25% of the programme having to be MMC, and with the top-up of volumetric, might cause a bit of a shift in terms of what providers are then delivering on the ground,” Mr Shepherd said.
Overall Vivid intends to deliver 17,000 homes by 2030, 1,600 of which it hopes to deliver this year.
Last year Vivid built 1,010 homes out of a planned 1,400, with development being temporarily hit as a result of the pandemic.
Mr Shepherd said the pandemic seems like “it could be just a blip” in Vivid’s overall development ambitions, however the crisis has had an impact on the type of homes it looks to build as customers become more interested in larger homes with gardens.
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