22025_The Future of UK Housing Supply_v2

SPEED UP DELIVERY

Residential construction is characterised by low productivity, mixed quality, slow output, and slim margins for housebuilders. With automation a high-impact certainty in our future city, we believe MMC represents an opportunity to address many of these issues. Factory production allows for better quality control, more efficient use of labour and materials (a big issue over the last few years), better productivity, faster scheme delivery, and less risk of disruption on site. MMC can also improve sustainability within construction. So far, however, MMC has been slow to take off. One of the big issues is that demand fluctuates, and unstable investment and unpredictable construction cycles have made it difficult to establish a consistent supply chain. There is also a huge cost involved in setting up a factory. We can’t let these challenges stop us - we need to continue to try new methods and innovate. If MMC takes off by 2040, the residential construction industry will be transformed.

REPURPOSING PRESENTS AN EXCITING OPPORTUNITY

Repurposing will play an important role in our city in 2040. We can repurpose redundant buildings back into communities, with a use class that better suits the needs of the local area. Inthe right locations, where building infrastructure, demand, and financial viability

align, repurposing can provide brilliant opportunities to deliver more homes.

We are moving in the right direction with changes to permitted development rights that make conversion easier. However, it is hard to make schemes financially viable. Financial support from the government would help move repurposing forward. Repurposing aligns with the government’s “brownfields first’ approach and sustainability agenda and therefore seems an obvious route to take.

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