Five government departments to prefer off-site construction over traditional building from 2019.
A host of big-spending government departments have said they will use off-site construction ahead of traditional methods on their upcoming capital programmes.
Chancellor Philip Hammond said the government wants “to improve the cost effectiveness, productivity and timeliness of infrastructure delivery” and promised that it will “use its purchasing power to drive adoption of modern methods of construction, such as off-site manufacturing”.
The transport, health, education, justice and defence departments will all adopt “a presumption in favour of off-site construction by 2019” across suitable capital programmes, Hammond added.
Last year’s report into the construction industry by Mark Farmer said much more off-site work was needed to combat skills shortages.
Farmer said: “This is extremely significant. Government has listened to the call for the leadership of the construction modernisation challenge.”
Net Zero Buildings
The practice of off-site construction is core to our proposition.
Schoolhaus® is designed by our in-house team and then built and delivered by our in-house construction division, based at our manufacturing facility in Newmarket. Our off-site construction system combines standardised large format panels (2D ‘flat’ components) with standardised volumetric modules (3D ‘whole’ sections).
A standard eight classroom building, constructed with our system can be transported in four loads, whereas a similar building constructed from a 3D modular system requires 12+ loads comprised mostly of ‘fresh air’. This saves the environmental and financial cost of unnecessary vehicle movements.
The components are then transported to site, craned into position and bolted together at rates of up to 200m2 per day. Both formats are ‘pre-finished’ at Newmarket; including external cladding, internal decoration, and where feasible, mechanical and electrical services.