We’ve appointed a range of approved manufacturers to our MMC Category 1 framework and MMC Category 2 DPS. In this series we ask our manufacturing partners to introduce themselves.
Starship Group
Modular housing manufacturer, Starship Group is based in Merseyside at Wirral Waters, one of the largest regeneration projects in the UK. They build net zero homes using a panelised system which means each home is completed and installed to a watertight state in 1.5 days. Starship have already created over 100 new jobs and expect a further 500 new opportunities to be created in the coming 24 months, reaching a capacity of over 500 homes each year.
We asked managing director, Karl Ventre to tell us a bit more about Starship Group.
Who’s in your team? Tell us about their career background, skills and experience.
We have a fantastic team that has brought in over 30 years’ experience in delivering both volumetric and panelised modular solutions.
Our head of manufacturing, Kevin Hardy is a great example of the cross-discipline experience we have here. Kevin studied architecture at university and initially cut his teeth in traditional construction. His architectural background gave him a strong technical understanding and that led him to offsite.
For Kevin, and lots of people who work in offsite manufacturing, it’s the technical side and the finite, precise detail that appeals. You are manufacturing an engineered product through a highly controlled offsite process, and your systems have to be robust enough for that product to work perfectly when it’s assembled on site.
Kevin and I have worked together in the past and have delivered thousands of homes and buildings using modern methods of construction so it’s a well-oiled team. We have had some unbelievable talent join us this year to make us even stronger. Simon Humphreys, who spent over 20 years as development director at Urban Splash, joined us in the Summer and Chris Richards who has spent 15 years as modular design engineer at Corus Living Solutions will now head up all our design engineering activities.
What would we be surprised to see if we visited your factory?
I think you would be surprised by the simplicity of how we do things, we work hard to design out complexity, so you won’t see millions of pounds worth of equipment over-automating the process.
We work with socially driven customers so our job is not to design out the person, it’s to make sure that we can build homes cost effectively and carefully control the quality process.
We also have a great culture. We set out, at the start, to not act like a property developer or manufacturing business. We look and feel more innovative than this.
You would also be surprised by the salvaged tram at the end of our storage yard! Our factory is based in the old docklands on the River Mersey and the old tram reminds us of that industrial past.
How long has your business been delivering MMC homes?
Starship Group was set up in 2019 following the merger of several established property development and construction businesses. We launched our modular offering in 2020, delivering a number of pilot schemes for local housing associations including Magenta and Torus. These first two pilot projects delivered EPC A rated carbon zero homes. In 2022 we delivered over 75 homes across the residential and leisure sectors. We will achieve over 200 homes this year.
What exciting news is on the horizon for your business?
We recently launched our Starship Campus model where, at each of our manufacturing locations, we have a modular manufacturing facility with apprenticeship-led education embedded in our campus.
In 2023 we start the planning and investment process for our phase 2 facility at our Wirral Waters Campus which will provide us with 100,000 sqft of additional manufacturing space in addition to some fantastic new learning facilities.
We want to put Wirral Waters on the map as a regional centre of excellence for modern methods of construction and help to create the next generation of construction skills. We recently partnered with Wirral Met College to offer hundreds of their students the chance to develop their skills and knowledge around offsite manufacturing.
It’s our plan to roll out Starship Campus in other key geographies across the country in the coming years.
We’ve also got some other, really exciting, large volume projects in the pipeline with our strategic partners which we can’t wait to tell you about later this year.
Find out more about Starship Group:
Karl Ventre is managing director at Starship Group
09 January 2023
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