The national body for mortgage lenders is calling for homes manufactured off-site to meet three quality standards, in order to satisfy its members they are a safe .
The Council of Mortgage Lenders wants:
  • an archive of designs so that homes no longer in production can be repaired more easily
  • accreditation of repair schemes so that designs currently known to be defective – like pre-reinforced concrete – and those that become faulty in future can be fixed
  • accreditation of designs and manufacturers by a body like the British Board of Agrémont, which is part of research body BRE.

CML senior policy adviser Andrew Heywood said: "Of 800 [existing] designs, more than 300 are unmortgageable because they are defective. We need to prevent this recurring."

The CML has met over the last month with the ODPM, National Housing Federation and Association of British Insurers to discuss giving mortgages to homeowners and housing associations for homes manufactured offsite.

Last month, the ABI said it could refuse to insure off-site manufactured homes because it was concerned about how they would respond to global warming (HT 26 September, page 13).

Simon Dow, chief executive of the Guinness Trust and chair of the Housing Forum's working group on off-site manufacture, backed several of the proposals. On the concept of an archive of designs, he said: "The off-site manufacturing group of the Housing Forum has been discussing the concept of a log book for houses with some form of new construction in them. It would also work for conventional houses."

But he did not think the idea of accrediting repairs was feasible. "If we have a new building technique, then we would have to make it fail, then find someone to fix it, and do this often enough to accredit them. The most effective way of doing it would be to use a logbook to say how to deal with defects." He said the industry should start by regulating itself, but government should take control if that fails.

Dow added that the Housing Forum expected two outstanding research papers by Imperial College Business School into the long-term costs of off-site manufacture and a directory of offsite manufacturers, to be published by Christmas.

  • The timber frame off-site manufacturing industry increased its turnover by £24m and built 2200 more homes in 2002 than it did in the previous year, according to the UK Timber Frame Association.

    • Source

    Housing Today