Legal & General has revealed its first turn-key modular housing prototype to be created at its 550,000 sq ft factory in Selby, near Leeds.
The prototype is a two-storey, two-bedroom home which L&G says is part of a push to deliver homes in a matter of weeks rather than years to consistently high standards.
Exploring a range of designs, L&G expects to deliver its first homes in the first half of next year. The Leeds site is building the capacity to produce thousands of homes per year across eight production lines, employing several hundred local people.
The faster speed of production is achieved by creating precision-engineered homes in a factory environment, ensuring accuracy of build, in dry controlled conditions, using state of the art methods and materials. The manufacturing process is highly energy efficient and will be carried out by a stable trained workforce, according to L&G. Constructing the homes from cross-laminated timber delivers further environmental benefits by storing one tonne of CO2 in every square metre of CLT used in the construction of each home. This ensures an economically viable and sustainable solution to deliver much needed capacity for the industry.
Rosie Toogood, chief executive of L&G Modular, said: “L&G has a long heritage in providing housing in the UK and sees modular construction as a natural evolution and extension of its position in this market. Modular construction is set to revolutionise the housebuilding sector bringing new materials along with methods and processes used in industries, such as car-making to raise productivity and help to address the UK’s chronic shortfall of new homes.”
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