RSLs off-site manufacturing consortium calls it a day after brave effort fails to meet targets

Amphion was set up in 1999 to devise off-site manufacturing systems for social landlords, but it had problems achieving the intended numbers of homes. The target was to build 2000 between 1999 and 2002; only 750 units have been built.

Housing associations paid up to £5000 to join the consortium, which at its peak had 23 members. Only half a dozen were left when the decision was taken to pull the plug last year. When production finishes on its remaining units this year it will not restart.

Mike Kirk, of Amphion member Hyde Housing Association, said: “We are obviously completing what we are doing but we are not doing any more at the current time.”

The hope was that government planners’ preference for brownfield sites, which suit OSM techniques, would lead to a surge in demand for the technology, such as Amphion’s timber-frame construction system Tee-U-Tech.

But the consortium was hit by a number of problems, including the takeover of partner Beazer Homes. This cost the consortium its access to Beazer’s land bank and therefore its ability to increase output.

Amphion’s inability to come up with a long-term funding solution also proved to be a stumbling block to creating the economies of scale necessary to make the scheme effective.

But Charlie Adams, Amphion board member and chief executive of Hyde, said Amphion’s legacy would live on.

He said: “Four members [of Amphion] are part of the Countryside Consortium, which has just won a third of the action in the key worker initiative in outer London, and our work [with the BUMA company from Krakow, Poland, which uses a system of bolted connections to build homes] is a direct result of it.

“I am obviously very disappointed [by the end of Amphion] but it was a very brave effort. It was the largest consortium of housing associations ever brought together.”

Amphion’s members include Acton Housing Association, Community Housing Association, Hastoe Housing Association, Metropolitan Housing Trust, Presentation Housing Association and Thames Valley Housing Association.

OSM research continues elsewhere. A £1.5m, three-year study on halving construction times is due out next year. Led by the Construction Industry Research and Information Association, the project was funded by the Department for Trade and Industry.