The first steel-framed modular homes manufactured at the CoreHaus factory were recently delivered, assembled and completed on a new homes site in the North East.
The County Durham-based company has handed over four three-bedroom semi-detached homes to regional housebuilder Homes by Carlton at its almost complete Thorpe Paddocks site at Thorpe Thewles, Tees Valley.
This is the latest milestone for CoreHaus, a social enterprise company, which operates from a 20,000 sq ft manufacturing unit on Jade Business Park, Murton, near Seaham.
CoreHaus managing director Scott Bibby explained: “Early last year our team walked through the factory doors in Seaham for the first time. What has been achieved since then has been nothing short of amazing. From factory fit-out and completion of the first factory built home through to the completion of homes on site at Thorpe Thewles.
“This project has allowed us to demonstrate the flexibility of our product by matching traditional aesthetics and finishes on these four homes while still offering a high level of pre manufactured value.
“It has been a genuine learning exercise where have been able to refine the product, improve skills and knowledge while also bringing efficiencies to the manufacturing process. We will be able to speed up the entire process on future projects from design, manufacture, delivery, assembly, and final build.”
Simon Walker, MD of Homes by Carlton, said: “We are delighted with the final CoreHaus product. They represent the affordable homes on our site and have been pre-sold to Believe Housing as rent-to-buy properties.
“We are experiencing a skills shortage across the construction and housebuilding sector. Modern methods of construction will be part of the mix in the future. We look forward to working with CoreHaus on further projects, delivering affordable housing on our sites.”
A five-year plan will see CoreHaus producing around 1,000 modular homes a year, which will result in more than 300 people working across the business. These homes will be built using modern methods of construction (MMC) which will result in high quality homes, built faster, with engineered precision and expected lower energy bills.
Scott Bibby said: “We have already generated sustainable, high-quality jobs at CoreHaus that brings best practice from other sectors into construction. It has allowed us to employ two apprentices who recently won rising star of the year award, again bringing new ways of thinking into the sector via younger generations who we are extremely proud of.
“The housing market remains buoyant with demand continuing to outstrip supply. There’s some extremely positive collaboration going on in the industry which will increase market share and strengthen the reputation of MMC.
“We know the housing sector wants something that’s both affordable and incorporates high-quality design within a modular frame. We are already in discussions with several regional and national housing associations interested in working with our product.”
CoreHaus is a joint-venture company between Carlton & Co Group, the parent company behind North East based Homes by Carlton, and national social enterprise Fusion21, specialists in public procurement for the built environment.
National housing agency Homes England is accelerating the delivery of local authority housing schemes, encouraging greater use of modern methods of construction (MMC).
Housing associations looking to sign significant ‘strategic partnership’ deals with Homes England to build large numbers of affordable homes will have to commit to using MMC to build out at least 25% of their pipeline.
Scott added: “Our production and designs draw on modern, technical skills and innovation. We have a real opportunity to break the current mould in housebuilding and construction and achieve our vision which is to transform new build housing delivery.”