Through its work with Advantage South West (ASW), Abri is collaborating with Building Better as it looks to Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) to help address the need for affordable homes.
Advantage South West is a procurement consortium of housing providers including amongst others, Abri, LiveWest, Ocean and North Devon Homes and by joining Building Better the consortium will be using their collective purchasing power to buy homes from leading MMC manufacturers.
Stephen Lodge, Executive Director for Development and Asset Management at Abri commented: “We see MMC as an essential step to meeting demand for affordable housing in the future. As part of our work with ASW, it’s great to be joining the Building Better project as this will allow us to develop offsite solutions at a greater scale.
“Within the construction industry we’re facing a shortage of skills which means we must look to alternative methods of building to deliver the homes people need. Offsite manufacturing offers so many advantages and as a member of Building Better we can share expertise to ensure even better homes for customers.”
Building Better was established from the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) Creating our Future programme to foster collaboration between housing associations and tackle housing’s biggest challenges.
Trina Chakravarti, Project Director for Building Better said: “Building Better is delighted to welcome the ASW consortium as members to our group. Collaboration is the key to bringing the full potential of the offsite manufacturing sector into housing associations, and this is a major step to achieving that. As we move closer to making a deal with a manufacturer to build offsite homes for our members, this joining of our groups puts us in an even stronger position.”
As part of their development strategy Abri is committed to delivering over 250 homes per year using MMC. As well as addressing the skills shortage, offsite construction has many more advantages including significantly less wastage of materials, improved environmental credentials, energy efficiency, excellent quality control and huge potential in innovative design.
Alongside working with Building Better, Abri is also looking at collaborating with other potential MMC developing partners exploring opportunities to deliver additional MMC sites.