We’ve kept this post intentionally brief so it’s an easy read. It outlines what members tell us they’ve learnt needs doing to reduce the pain of increasing costs.
1/ Share risks and rewards
Historically, our sector has wanted to pass on risk in development. This approach can lead to quality issues but it also costs more.
As our members develop their confidence building with MMC, we want to encourage more collaborative forms of contracts that share in the risks and rewards, and novel forms of delivery that put more of the onus on our members. Manufacturing partners tell us that they’re more than happy to use traditional Design & Build JCT contracts but even these can take a more collaborative and open form.
2/ Engage early
This is key. Only through early engagement can members and manufacturers work out if a site is truly viable. Almost 1300 units have been assessed by our partners on the framework so far and contrary to initial concerns, the viability of small sites and assumed accessibility issues have borne out less frequently than we thought. What can be the clincher is when small sites also then have too much variance in home types.
By getting manufacturer feedback right from the off, it’s possible to design the scheme in a way that is much more likely to stack up on costs. And if not, our members can quickly move on to a different way of delivering the site, either using a different form of MMC, or traditionally. Our manufacturing partners understand our sector’s challenges delivering this way and they’re prepared to do the early review of these sites at risk.
3/ Be transparent on scheme budgets
The single biggest change our members can make to ensure a more efficient process is to be upfront with the scheme budget and provide our manufacturing partners feedback on costs.
Historically, housing associations have been very reluctant to have upfront discussions on scheme budget for fear the contractor will work to that number. However, costs with our partners are totally transparent – and in the case of our Category 1 (modular) partners, we already know what a home will cost above ground. The more information they can provide upfront, the quicker one of our manufacturing partners can let them know if a site is or is not viable.
So, we’ve asked both our members and our manufacturing partners to be less polite about upfront budget requirements going forward.
Development is evolving and so are the housing providers, contractors and manufacturers. We all want to build more homes that are of the highest quality and at the best price and Building Better uses collaboration and transparency as guiding principles to achieve these aims.
By Trina Chakravarti, Project Director at Building Better
02 August 2022
Membership of Building Better is open to any housing association or local authority housing provider in England and Wales.
