Archive for category: Latest News

The homes can be assembled and furnished in a week. Picture: LDRS

Super-speedy flat pack homes installed in Mile End for homeless families

#flatpackhomes #homeless #socialhousing #londoncouncil

Two prototype modular homes have been put up in Mile End by the Pan-London Accommodation Collaborative Enterprise (PLACE) to provide temporary accommodation for families in need.

If the first test models are successful, Tower Hamlets Council hopes to get planning permission to build 16 on the site of some old garages in Landon Walk, Poplar.

The homes would be designed to stay in place for 10 years, the council said.

John Biggs, mayor of Tower Hamlets, said: “It could make a real difference to how we accommodate homeless Londoners at a time when our city is experiencing an ongoing housing crisis.

“I am glad we’ve been able to host these test units in Tower Hamlets. We’ve already identified a site for the first modular homes and in the coming weeks we hope to secure planning permission. It’s important that we think outside the box to tackle these complex challenges and this programme is doing just that.”

PLACE, which was started by London Councils that represents 32 boroughs, said the accommodation has the quality of permanent housing but the units can be relocated to a different site if required.

The homes, supported by £11 million of funding from the Mayor of London, will be put on land earmarked for development in the long term, which would otherwise remain underused.

There are some 2,000 homeless families in Tower Hamlets and more than 60,000 households in the capital currently live in temporary accommodation.

London Council’s is looking suitable locations for the flat pack homes and PLACE aims to supply 200 of the models across the capital by February 2022.

Tom Copley, London’s deputy mayor for housing & residential development, said: “PLACE shows what can be done when City Hall, councils and innovative construction and tech industries work together to tackle one of our city’s most pressing issues.

“Homeless people and those living in temporary accommodation deserve high-quality homes. This project will not only help improve the housing available for homeless families and reduce the cost of providing temporary accommodation for local authorities, but will hopefully drive innovation in house building, showing the potential of precision-manufactured housing.”

Source: East London Advertiser

One of the UK’s leading offsite construction specialists – has been awarded the contract to provide modular housing for homeless families in Barking who are in urgent need of accommodation.

#affordablehousing #offsite #developers #premiermodular

The new homes are being developed by Be First, the regeneration arm of Barking and Dagenham Council.

The £1.5 million contract was awarded to Premier by main contractor Jerram Falkus and will provide 20 two-bedroom apartments across two blocks, all manufactured offsite.

The build programme has been reduced to only 15 weeks for the procurement, manufacturing and fitting out of the apartments, installation on site and commissioning, thanks to the use of an innovative offsite solution for this project.

The apartments will be fully finished at Premier’s factory in East Yorkshire using high-quality materials and will be delivered to site complete with bathrooms, kitchens, flooring, partitions, doors, windows and external cladding.

After the installation of the apartments, only M&E connections, joint details between modules and service risers will need to be completed on site.

Set for completion by the end of this year, the building will occupy a highly constrained site in a residential area and adjacent to a live railway line. Premier plans to install a trackway across an open field to bring in the 250-tonne crane and the apartments. As there are restricted hours for delivery of the modules as the site is located within the M25, the project requires detailed logistical planning.

Marcia Kirlew, development manager at Be First, said of the project: “Modular construction allows us to halve the construction time, with obvious benefits to residents in the neighbouring areas. But, more importantly, it allows us to respond to the rapidly developing needs of our local community much faster than we would otherwise, by providing value-for-money, high-quality housing for local people.”

Ed Bartlett, project lead at Jerram Falkus, added: “It is great to see how Be First has really embraced offsite construction to allow the development of challenging sites such as this, which would be very difficult to develop using in-situ construction methods. As a contractor, we appreciate that modular housing is helping us to deliver construction projects faster for our clients, addressing the shortfall in available housing.”

Dan Allison, divisional director at Premier Modular, commented: “Each two-bedroom apartment occupies a single 12.5 tonne module to optimise efficiency and will be factory tested before arriving on site. Premier will only be on site for 25 days which demonstrates the speed of our modular housing solution very well. This is a huge benefit when there is an urgent need for homes for local homeless people in the borough.”

He said it was the firm’s second emergency housing project to help meet government targets to address homelessness, alongside a £7.5 million contract for Buckinghamshire Council for the offsite construction of 58 apartments for homeless people in High Wycombe.

Designed by ATP, the Barking scheme will have roof-mounted PV panels to generate electricity and bike shelters will be installed, as well as some car parking and landscaping.

Premier Modular specialises in the offsite construction of high-quality mid-rise apartments and studios for affordable housing, Build to Rent, student accommodation and emergency housing for homeless people.

Up to 100,000 square metres of living space can be manufactured per year in a single shift, providing capacity for large-scale residential developments with minimal disruption, greater clarity of delivery on time and budget, earlier occupation and a faster return on investment for the developer.

Source: Property Investment Today

The government agency will require bidders for its £7.4bn pot for affordable housing supply in the next five years to use modern methods of construction such as off-site manufacturing.

#mmc #off-site #funding #contractors #affordablehomes #developers

The Affordable Homes Programme provides grant funding to support the capital costs of developing affordable housing for rent or sale.

As the Government’s housing accelerator, Homes England will be making available £7.39bn from April 2021 to deliver up to 130,000 affordable homes by March 2026, all outside London. Affordable housing in London is governed by the Greater London Authority.

In a statement Homes England said it “expects partners to share the ambitions set out in Homes England’s strategic plan to create a more resilient and diverse housing market. This means partners will also be expected to focus on promoting significant use of Modern Methods of Construction, high-quality sustainable design and working closely with local SME housebuilders.”

The funding is for the supply of new build affordable housing, not met by the market.

Nick Walkley, CEO of Homes England, said: “There will be more of this to follow as we seek to use all our programmes to ramp up MMC capacity and capability.”

• Off Site Manufacturing – Volumetric
• OSM – Panellised
• OSM – Hybrid
• OSM – Sub-assemblies and components
• Non-OSM Modern Methods of Construction

Homes England said non-OSM methods of construction  “is intended to encompass schemes utilising innovative housing building techniques and structural systems that fall outside the OSM categories. The presence of innovation is an essential feature that might manifest itself through an innovative non-OSM building system, through a building technique familiar in other sectors but new to house-building, or through traditional components being combined in innovative ways. Typically, ‘TunnelForm’ or H + H Celcon ‘Thin joint blocks’ would fall within this category.”

The funding also supports wider strategic objectives, including:

• Encouraging uptake of the National Design Guide, which is part of the government’s collection of planning practice guidance within the National Planning Policy Framework.
• Improving the energy efficiency and sustainability of new affordable housing supply.
• Encouraging the use of SME contractors.

To allow for this, some of these elements are included in the assessment criteria for funding applications, and others are included in the standard conditions of funding.

Source: Placetech

CBI unveils vision for how the government can drum up private investment for ‘infrastructure revolution’ to build green economic recovery

#zeroemmissions #infrastructure #construction #cbi

Regulatory bodies should be given more responsibility for ensuring delivery of infrastructure under the government’s long-awaited National Infrastructure Strategy aligns with the UK’s net zero emissions target.

That is one of the key recommendations contained in a major new report from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which sets out its vision for how the government could galvanise private sector investment behind a sweeping infrastructure programme that would both drive a recovery from the coronavirus crisis and put the UK on track to meet its climate targets.

Achieving net zero emissions would require transformative investment in highly regulated industries such as energy and transport, and as such regulators should be given a “specific regard” to deliver the National Infrastructure Strategy and a “clear responsibility” to ensure regulatory policy aligns with the UK’s net zero ambitions, as well as other government strategic objectives on infrastructure, the CBI said.

The proposal echoes similar calls from leading figures in the energy industry and a number of opposition MPs, who have long argued that regulatory bodies such as Ofgem and Ofwat require an explicit mandate to support and enable the net zero transition. Critics have argued that a tendency by regulators to prioritise shorter term concerns, such as limiting increases in energy costs, has hampered investment in critical green infrastructure, such as smart grid upgrade programmes.

Among the other recommendations listed in the CBI paper are for calls for the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure and Projects Authority to given greater independence and authority to hold government to account on infrastructure delivery progress, and proposals for the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline to be reformed to provide greater clarity on investment opportunities for the private sector.

The report, dubbed Financing the Future, collates recommendations from investors, developers, engineers, and consultants that make up the CBI’s membership. It emphasises that the UK must plough ahead with a significant programme of infrastructure investment if it is to meet its climate ambitions and tap the economic gains projected to be delivered through green growth.

“The delivery of new infrastructure will also play a key role in supporting a green recovery, and progressing towards meeting the UK’s target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as modern networks and new methods of construction help cut emissions,” it states.

But with the public purse straining from a raft of Covid-19 support measures and a £372bn deficit expected in 2020-2021, private sector investment will be a critical driver of this ‘infrastructure revolution’, the CBI argued.

“While the UK government’s commitment to delivering infrastructure remains undeterred, the country’s fiscal position has substantially worsened,” said CBI chief policy director Matthew Fell. “In this context, the private sector now has an even more important role to play in helping to bridge the funding gap needed to deliver the government’s vision for UK infrastructure.”

In the event that the UK leaves the European Investment Bank, the CBI reccomends the government to set up a UK infrastructure bank focused on ‘crowding in’ private finance by reducing investor risks and promoting market stability.

Fell stressed the government must take steps to tackle “concerns about regulation and a lack of clarity about investment opportunities” as it moves ahead with its plans to spend £640bn on revitalising Britain’s roads, railways, broadband, and housing through measures announced in the March Budget.

“The government must commit to an approach that gives confidence to investors and capitalises on the attributes of businesses and public sector establishing itself once again as a world class destination for investment,” he said.

Industry leaders today welcomed the report’s publication, predicting that if adopted its recommendations would help the UK ‘build back better’.

Guy Thompson, director environmental futures at Wessex Water, said: “We need to invest more in essential infrastructure and to take a long-term view on that investment. The focus on a green economic recovery from the Covid crisis presents an opportunity to build infrastructure that is more resilient in the face of climate change and other environmental pressures.”

His comments were echoed by Richard Threlfall, global head of infrastructure at KPMG International, who argued that “with constrained public finances, now more than ever, we need to attract private finance, both from the UK and from inward investment”. “I welcome the powerful set of recommendations in this report, which if enacted would really help the UK to build back better,” he added.

Commenting on the report, a spokesperson from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We’re committed to building a Britain with world class infrastructure. Spring Budget 2020 set out that the public sector will invest £640bn over five years in our future prosperity.”

The government has repeatedly stressed that it is committed to engineering a ‘green recovery’ and unleashing an infrastructure boom akin to Roosevelt’s New Deal as it looks to revive the economy in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

But campaigners have called on the government to fast-track its infrastructure plans, highlighting how both Germany and France have already unveiled multi-billion Euro green stimulus programmes.

The CBI’s calls for a clearer net zero mandate for regulators also comes ahead of a crucial decision for energy regulator Ofgem as it weighs up a new set of price controls for network operators. Leading network operators have argued they need a more generous price control regime to help draw in the investment required to deliver a new wave of smart grid and green gas technologies.

Source: Business Green

The UK’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) have unveiled a new report that sets out the key factors to reduce risk and bring down the cost of new nuclear power plant projects by 30% by 2030.

#nuclearenergy #construction #uk

The report was produced by a “cross-industry team”, working as part of the government-backed Nuclear Sector Deal.

These factors include rigorous pre-construction planning, with simplicity of design and construction methodology, repeating designs across multiple stations, and building up and transferring a skilled and experienced workforce to new projects.

The report also identifies how a new financing model that controls construction risk will also bring down consumer costs by “mobilising a wider pool of investors” and cutting the cost of capital. The report incorporates lessons from projects “across the globe” and shows that nuclear power is vital to achieving Net Zero by 2050, whilst creating thousands of high quality jobs and economic opportunities across the country, the NIA said.

UK Minister for Business and Energy Nadhim Zahawi said: “I am delighted to see the nuclear industry setting out a clear and robust framework to reduce costs, in line with its commitments under the Nuclear Sector Deal. New nuclear will play an important role as we reach our net zero target by providing reliable, low carbon power as part of our future energy mix.”

NIA Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association Tom Greatrex said: “Nuclear power stations are very cost effective to run due to high reliability, low and predictable fuel costs and very large volumes of power generated whatever the weather. This report demonstrates that the upfront costs can be tackled effectively by bearing down on construction complexity and risks, and by tackling unnecessarily high financing costs.”

Risk Assessment Tool

To embed this framework, the industry is developing a comprehensive Risk Assessment Tool which will monitor 14 key factors for project delivery and efficiency.

The tool will enable developers, investors and the government to develop a clear understanding of project risks to support investment decisions, and then track the ongoing management of those actions and risks throughout the delivery of the project.

The NIA said the industry has achieved early progress against these initial indicators:

• Rigorous pre-construction planning: designs should be as mature as possible and all key stakeholders aligned on the scope and scheduling of a project before construction begins;
• The designs that will be used at Wylfa Newydd and Sizewell C are highly advanced, and years of work have been undertaken to prepare the delivery organisations for construction;
• Repeating designs: constructing a number of the same reactors dramatically reduces design costs, allows the application of best practice from previous projects and facilitates continuous investment in the supply chain and workforce training;
• Hinkley Point C has borne first generation costs for new nuclear in the UK, and setting up the supply chain, skilling workers, and building capabilities will reduce costs for all subsequent large-scale reactors;
• Wylfa Newydd will use the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor, which been built on time and budget four times in Japan between 1992 and 2006. The last station was built in just 37 months
• Transferring skilled labour: workers can apply their learnings and experience from building one plant to building another;
• At Hinkley Point C, it took 16 hours to install a tonne of rebar at Unit Two, down from 25 hours for Unit One – a 36% reduction.

The NIA said the industry is confident that by taking the steps outlined in the report, and by action from government to secure a new financing model, costs will fall in accordance with the commitments made under the Nuclear Sector Deal.

In May 2019 the Committee on Climate Change said in its Net Zero – Technical report that, “Power sector decarbonisation does not rely on variable renewables alone, but a portfolio of technologies including nuclear power.” And the Energy Systems Catapult concluded in June 2020 that “committing to a further 10GW of new nuclear beyond Hinkley Point C is a low regrets option for the UK as it targets a Net Zero economy”.

All but one of the UK’s existing nuclear power stations are set to close by 2030 and the government is currently consulting on a Regulated Asset Base approach to financing nuclear power plants, under which a given project’s returns would be overseen by a regulator. The NIA said this would involve “some sharing of costs and risks” with consumers, adding that this “would be appropriate, provided that developers are taking sufficient risk reduction measures, as identified in the report, to make the allocation reasonable”.

Humphrey Cadoux-Hudson, chair of the Cost Reduction Working Group of the Nuclear Sector Deal, said: “I am very pleased to say that the nuclear new build cost reduction workstream has made great progress, and our report clearly shows it’s possible to deliver a cost-effective programme of new nuclear power stations in the UK. But promises of cost reduction are not enough – in making this case, the developers of new nuclear plants are showing that we recognise the delivery risks we face, and how to manage them.”

Source: World Nuclear News