The White Paper highlights the use of modular factory-built homes to provide the much needed homes across England. Pulse Modular Homes is already expanding its footprint and working with both local authorities and housing associations to deliver innovative solutions in site selection – above carparks, using old banks of dilapidated garages, old gasometers and other brownfield sites.
Michael Stockdale joint CEO of Pulse: “We really welcome government’s commitment to provide more housing and its recognition and support of the role modular housing can play in delivering really good quality homes quickly.”
Modular construction is now recognised as offering a high quality alternative to conventional construction. Individual modular building components are constructed in state-of-the-art facilities whilst site preparation is underway. The architect tailors the façade to the local environment making the completed building indistinguishable from traditional construction.
Mike continued: “What is encouraging is that the innovation drive of the whitepaper is already being recognised by councils and housing associations. One of our housing schemes, which is in partnership with North Lincolnshire Council above a Scunthorpe town centre carpark, is a perfect example of how this can work.”
The whitepaper highlights the productivity gap in traditional building and the lack of skilled workers. Modular housing increases productivity by fifty to sixty percent and attracts skilled workers to work in clean factories where trades can be scheduled without any weather problems and with all the building materials to hand.
An additional benefit of using modular construction is the significant reduction in noise, waste and vehicle movements during the site build – an important factor when developing sites in urban locations.
Pulse Modular Homes is already working with local authorities and housing associations across the UK to provide affordable housing on under utilised or brownfield sites.
Car Park opportunity:
Research released in January 2017 by JLL Residential Research has identified almost 10,500 urban car parks in the UK as being suitable for accommodating 400,000 homes – enough to house around one million people. More than half of these car parks are in public ownership where local authorities could quickly initiate the construction of 200,000 new homes and in many cases without the loss of any parking spaces.
Pulse was founded by directors, David Brown of MerryVale Developments and Mike Stockdale of Kube Accommodation Group.
