Modern Methods of Construction: Are they a Good Thing?

Essentially MMC are different forms of innovative construction or methodologies, which focus on off-site techniques such as mass production and factory assembly, as alternatives to traditional build.  You can see the potential advantages from less need for specialist skills to factory-controlled quality, speed and less on-site waste. Considering the concept and the related issues is important to all those in the development industry, from the initial planning to sales personnel.


Simon Jones, Technical Innovation Manager of the Vistry Group, a top 1 / 2 housebuilder first of all went through the seven categories of MMC. He obviously concentrated on Categories 1 & 2 which related to 3D primary or volumetric systems and 2D primary structural systems and which Vistry are promoting from their own factories. At present these are focussed on manufacturing a closed timber frame timber product, but hope to move to adding external cladding, roofing, doors and windows (Cat 2c).
 
He then discussed some of the potential advantages listed above, but at the same time talked about the challenges, including payment stages, early design freezes and the need for level sites.

 
Edward Jezeph is responsible for encouraging offsite construction and innovation for Homes England, the Government’s housing and regeneration agency. He went through the various tools that they use to try and increase the supply of affordable, quality homes (last year 190k against a target of 300k so work to do). These include giving funding to get sites ready for development, loans, grants for affordable homes and guarantees.
 
Construction is a tough job with limited productivity improvements constantly lagging behind the rest of the economy with a poor safety record and a dearth of skills. One third of UK waste comes from construction with 25% of materials taken to site wasted.
 
As with Simon, Edward pressed the concept of offsite timber frame construction with further advantages from cost certainty, improved health and safety and greater labour force diversity. He concluded with some case examples, including the famous and impressive timber framed, Goldsmith Street, Norwich.

James Wilson, MD of Davidsons, a major regional housebuilder focussed on commercial risk in the light of companies, such as Ilke Homes, an MMC advocate, entering liquidation with £319m of debts. He talked through a case study of, for him, the inflexibility of relying on a MMC contractor supply that puts the whole project at financial risk.
 
For his brand that introduces a lot of design detail and variety into its product it makes the timber frame designs more complex and therefore less economic. It is also more inflexible in terms of labour requirements and therefore less cost effective, having greater peaks and troughs in the need for specialised skills such as plumbers and electricians, which is less efficient.
 
He is not opposed to MMC as such, being disappointed that he is building in essentially the same way as 30 years ago when he entered the profession. At the moment for him MMC is better suited to such schemes as student housing, where repetition is the key.
 
There then followed a lively and very civilised debate. For low rise housing there is clearly a long way to go to reap the obvious benefits of off-site production, but it should ultimately be the way to go. At present sufficient benefits will probably be restricted to say the largest 5 housebuilders with scale to work with large production runs.
 

Our speakers could all speak from a position of substantial experience and authority, so it was a real privilege for myself and hopefully the 80 odd people in the audience. And everyone should have learnt a lot – the speakers said they did!

Modern Methods of Construction: Are they a good thing?

Building parts or all of a house off site in factory conditions seems a no brainer, compared with working in what at times can be a hostile environment of weather or light, with supervision being harder for management. 

But MMC has certainly proved problematic at best, with housebuilding companies like Ilke Homes, who promoted it falling into receivership and major players, such as Legal and General closing their factory production facilities. So, what are the issues and can or are they worth being overcome?

For our latest CPD in a pub event (which incidentally we have now been doing for over 10 years) we have moved to the Marquis of Wellington from the Parcel yard. (Its only because the latter has closed and is about to be demolished for Leicester’s railway station regeneration). The Marquis has a very good ambience for a pint and some learning & socialising. And it definitely has better parking close by!

To make it work we have our usual set up of three main speakers, with 10 minutes each, before a group discussion and back to the bar by the hour. 

Simon Jones is the Group Technical Innovation Manager of the Vistry Group and sets the technical scene. This includes describing, in particular, the difference between Category 1 and Category 2 MMC. The former is based upon volumetric construction involving the production of three dimensional units in controlled factory conditions. Category 2 is a systemised approach using flat panel units for basic floor wall and roof structures. The open panels or frames are skeletal with services, insulation and internal and external finishes installed on site.

Edward Joseph from Homes England will set out the agency’s enthusiasm for MMC and particularly the advantages and incentives for developing the art and science of house building fit for the twenty first century.

James Wilson, Managing Director of major house builder Davidsons will present an alternative viewpoint, as a counterpoint to what is often seen as the general enthusiasm for MMC.

It could be considered that MMC should only be of interest to those directly involved in the construction of homes. But, in fact, it should be of interest to the whole development industry. Take Planners for example - well divorced from the realities of the physical work, but very much interested in the outcomes. We need the building of homes to be more efficient; we need them to be as sustainable as possible. In the current climate we need them to be built as quickly as possible, to the highest standards, but we also need them to relate to their locale and be able to maintain a distinctive character, not just become part of any town anywhere.

Finally,  I want to acknowledge the help of Ryan Pritchard of Countryside Partnerships and Nicola Pettman of SGP in putting this programme together. They know more about the subject than I do!

The Future of City Centres: A few thoughts

At hot topic at business forums in Leicester at the moment appears to be the future of ours and other City Centres. There are further meetings of both Leicester Business Voice and Procon at the end of February on this issue.

 

The conversation at present appears to be relatively negative and has been so for a few years now. Clearly, the internet has wiped out a significant proportion of the retail offer of most centres and latterly the increased trend for working for home has only added to those woes in City centres.

 

Inevitably, the discussions in business circles tend to be by middle class, middle aged people such as myself, and this can be somewhat biased.

 

At a recent Friends of New Walk meeting I opined that I had visited the centre of Leicester recently on a Tuesday night and certainly on the Gallowtree Gate axis it was busy on a day I did not expect. I did remark that it was a very different demographic from myself being young and significantly of Asian background. While I was very positive about this, the aspect that made it a bit uncomfortable for me was the absolute proliferation of cycles and similar in the pedestrian areas, frequently travelling at significant speed. I did not feel relaxed and felt I had to keep my wits about me all the time.

 

Cllr Liz Sahu picked me up on this at the meeting by saying I had missed that it is also largely male (probably me being a male!). And of course she is right.

 

I think this focus on a limited demographic is a weakness, discouraging a wider range of visitors to act as customers for greater variety of businesses. If the profile is young and male it can be a more combustible environment prone to behaviours, which discourages other groups visiting when there are a limited range of people in view.

 

Parallel to this I was reflecting on a report of immediately before covid by the Centre for Cities thinktank. From memory it reviewed the largest 36(?) centres in the UK and their ‘office’ offer. Leicester, I believe, was the second lowest proportionate to its size in the UK. This is a big weakness of our city, as such employees are generally in better paid jobs than the average and have a clear opportunity before and after work, as well as at lunchtime to visit the plethora of retail, leisure and hospitality businesses. They also breed more familiarity with the City making it more likely they will visit at other times as well. And, of course, provide greater spread to the demographic issue flagged up above.

 

Since Covid the numbers of office workers actually in situ in the City has plummeted. Many office based businesses struggle to get their experienced employees to return citing the benefits of teaching and supporting junior staff and new starters; better collaborative working; greater management direction; and improved productivity (studies from Goldman Sachs to my small business size cite that overall there is a 25% reduction in productivity with full home working). I was very heartened to read at the end of January of an Employment Tribunal case where a senior manager at UK’s financial regulator, the FCA, was ordered back to work because of the business benefit, even though it was acknowledged that her work, as such, was satisfactory.  

 

I was also heartened to read that Sadiq Khan, worried about the detrimental effect of the WFH movement on the London economy, was looking at ways to incentivise working in the office, like cheaper travel, on the highest days for working from home.

 

So, in this perfect storm of challenges for the city centres, I don’t pretend to have many answers.

 

But we do need:

 

Senior businesses leaders, as well as the large public organisations based in the city, need to take the lead on getting staff back to the office to both support all the secondary businesses,  as well as broaden the demographic making the City more comfortable to women, older people and affluent people from outside the City who have more disposable income.

 

In Leicester we must continue to try and improve our transport offer as currently because of the tram and the greater public control of buses we lag behind Nottingham.

 

We need some way of achieving national control and enforcement of speeding and pavement riding of electric bikes / scooters.

 

With the changing patterns of working we need to understand how we can improve the whole office environment to make it more attractive to staff and conducive to the advantages of office working such as training, company cohesion and collaborative working.