KEY WORKER HOMES
NEW WAVE HOMES
The Homes for Heroes national campaign calls on the government to commit to delivering 100,000 affordable, eco-friendly, factory-built homes for key workers on public land and is backed by an alliance of major housing associations and modular housing manufacturers.
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The campaign deliberately echoes the Homes for Heroes drive for soldiers after World Wars One and Two but this time is calling for housing for nurses and other key workers who have been on the frontline in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown. The campaign wants to deliver 100,000 eco-friendly factory-built homes to repay ‘historic debt’ owed to key workers manufactured in British factories.
As well as building affordable housing for sale and rent, the main societal benefit would be major investment into new modular housing factories likely to come forward if there was a certainty of future demand. Like any manufacturing facility, housing factories such as those in Yorkshire, owned by companies such as Legal and General (L&G) and ilke Homes are capital-intensive and cannot be ‘turned off and on like traditional construction’.
The national campaign urges Government to support investment in modular construction to create homes on public land and create thousands of highly-skilled manufacturing jobs. Homes for Heroes is a national alliance of housing associations, public figures, business leaders and leading hightech manufacturers of modular homes. It wants the government to help fund the initiative alongside private investors and housing associations, using public land and innovative new offsite manufacturing techniques which can ensure homes are finished quickly and surpass current energy performance requirements.
“Modular construction will enable the delivery of high quality homes at a much faster rate than through traditional construction,” says Rosie Toogood, CEO of Legal & General Modular Homes. “In a post COVID-19 crisis environment, the speed of delivery will be more important than ever before. The Homes for Heroes campaign unites several great causes: creating quality homes for genuine heroes, powering innovation and skills right at the time we need to create jobs and pushing the bar upwards when it comes to quality and sustainability. We're delighted to support this initiative.”
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“We call on the housing industry and government to collaborate in a national effort to develop a shared and interoperable modular system that will deliver homes fit for heroes. Working together, with speed, scale and precision, this collective effort can deliver a knockout blow to outdated delivery models.” Rory O’Hagan, Director at Assael Architecture Dave Sheridan, Executive Chairman at ilke Homes, adds: “Through our partnerships with placemaking pioneers such as Places for People, our investment with Homes England and our growing pipeline with developers and housing associations, we are seeing growing support for MMC because of the demand for better quality homes where the delivery time and energy use is halved. This is a great initiative to build homes, create jobs and spur on an emerging manufacturing sector that can offer countless benefits to the economy -
