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Four in five homes from new offsite factory will be for social landlords
Four in five homes to be built at a new offsite factory in Yorkshire which can build homes for as little as £65,000 will go to housing association developments, the boss of the company behind the factory has said.
Bjorn Conway, founder and chief executive of Ilke Homes, told Inside Housing that 80% of homes to come out of the factory in the next 12 to 18 months would be earmarked for properties being developed by registered providers.
Last week Ilke Homes launched its factory in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, which aims to produce 2,000 new modular homes by 2020.
The factory can produce two or three-bedroom homes at a cost of between £65,000 and £79,000.
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Speaking to Inside Housing, Mr Conway said that over the next 12 months the company had a pipeline of 1,000 homes, with the majority of them set to go to developments for housing associations.
Mr Conway said: “About 80% of our homes will probably go to RPs [registered providers] over the next 12 to 18 months; and looking at the next full financial year of April to April, we have a pipeline of about 1,000 houses.”
He added: “Some of these still need to get through planning but this number will certainly be in the high hundreds.”
The company already has plans in place to upscale its operations with two additional factories, which would take production up to 5,000 homes a year by the end of 2023.
When asked if he thought the factory would continue to provide 80% of its homes for housing associations when the company was producing 5,000 homes, Mr Conway said he didn’t envisage that proportion to change too much.
He said: “I think it is too early to tell, but if you think government has provided extra grant to housing associations for about 13,000 homes and they have already got ambitious build plans and traditional construction is already constrained by skilled labour and we are not constrained in the same way.
“So I would envisage that proportion won’t change hugely, and I think there is plenty of demand for good quality homes.”
The new Knaresborough factory can produce a total of 28 different house types, with the frames of the homes having a lifespan of more than 250 years.
Mr Conway said that the factory was already planning to supply homes to developments across the country at sites in South Wales, Kent, the North East and the Isle of Wight.
Ilke Homes has already supplied houses to a number of housing associations including the Home Group’s Gateshead Innovation Village project and for LiveWest for one of its developments in Bridgwater, Somerset.
Mr Conway said the company had also supplied a number of homes for Newcastle City Council on a site they were developing alongside contractor Engie.
Mr Conway said that the company would be looking to form more long-term partnerships with councils.
The new factory will be 25,000m and will currently has 250 people working within the factory – 80% of these are from outside of traditional construction trade backgrounds. The house builder plans to create a further 500 jobs at the factory in the next five years.
