Trina Chakravarti, Director at Building Better, took some valuable time out to speak to us about the organisation’s role and why MMC is integral to the improvement of the social Housing sector.
Q: Building Better is an alliance of housing associations and local authorities committed to using more Offsite manufacture in social housing – can you a say a little about its background and mission?
Trina Chakravarti (TC): Building Better was set up by social housing providers, for social housing providers. Everything we do centres around our social purpose – to provide homes that help people lead healthy, happy lives. I think that’s a real strength for us as an alliance. It’s in our gift to do something that impacts both our residents and the environment they live in and MMC supports both areas. Our mission is also to focus on sustainability in its broadest sense and the more we save by harnessing demand from other social housing organisations (we now have 32 members), the more we can all build and benefit both the climate and residents.
Q: The quality of housing generally in the UK is under a constant critical spotlight – perhaps more so in the social housing sector. Where are the main pinch points in social housing supply and how can offsite improve building at scale and give registered landlords best value for money?
TC: There’s no silver bullet here. We’re not for a second suggesting offsite alone can make up for the chronic undersupply over a generation – but it must be part of the solution. The labour crisis means there aren’t enough skilled tradespeople to build homes traditionally and layers of subcontracting encourages the passing down of risk and a lack of ownership. Offsite and the assembly-led manufacturing process improves quality because employees (and their work) can be checked more easily – reducing downstream operational and maintenance costs. It’s also a more attractive environment to work in – one location, safer, not exposed to the elements and appealing to a more diverse workforce. A development director recently described traditional construction as “building the retrofit of the future” and this highlights another way scaled offsite construction can give housing providers value for money. Our members are thinking about how the homes they build now will stand the test of time in terms of environmental and energy performance as well as customer comfort and affordability.
Q: How easy – or difficult – is it to convince clients that MMC is a viable route to better housing for their portfolios and residents? What objections do you often come across?
TC: We’re finding that sharing experiences, case studies and data is critical to engaging clients and showing them that MMC is viable and will help them provide safer, higher quality homes for their residents, but also homes that will need less maintenance and retrofit down the line. Hearing first hand from other housing associations and local authorities helps to break down the fear factor around risk in the market, but also where to begin and what type of MMC is right for their homes. Objections include cost and cost certainty. We’ve designed our procurement framework and dynamic purchasing system to provide clarity on cost. With our procurement partner, Procurement for Housing (PfH), we’ve created an MMC cost modeller that members can use to quickly find out prices by choosing from a range of housing archetypes, confirming the number of units and their location. This provides an estimated cost per square metre for a fully completed site with the opportunity to get an uplift price for net zero.
Q: Procurement, planning and pipeline are three Ps associated with many frustrations surrounding the wider growth of offsite manufacture – is that fair to say from your experience? What are the barriers to wider adoption?
TC: I’d agree on those, but I’d add a fourth: Price! MMC has got an image problem when it comes to price, with people often (wrongly) assuming it will cost more than traditional. Building Better has been tackling this head on by creating streamlined, accessible ways to procure MMC at affordable prices but also by gathering cost data from housing providers using MMC at scale. We’ve worked with several housing providers, each delivering MMC homes, to gather their figures which you can read about on our website. This data shows that MMC costs are on a par with traditional homes when you compare like for like on specification. If there is a slight increase for MMC then it’s offset by savings from offsite where homes need less maintenance and retrofit down the line.
Q: Are any preferences being shown by the membership for MMC Categories and what level of understanding is there amongst housing associations and local authorities of the various methods and benefits behind these?
TC: We’ve seen a lot of interest in both Category 1 and Category 2 and there is some knowledge about the different processes and advantages but equally, housing organisations are really appreciative of the webinars, factory tours, workshops, case studies and other content we create that clearly explains what MMC is, the different categories and the difference within those categories. We get a lot of feedback from members saying that they want to take people from across the whole organisation on the MMC journey – from asset management and sales, through to comms and finance teams. That means ditching the jargon and laying out the benefits to different stakeholders plainly. It also means painting a rich picture of what MMC is all about, different experiences, different schemes, different techniques so everyone gets on board. Interestingly, there’s also demand from our members to unpick the term ‘net zero’. It’s almost meaningless because it’s so overused and that’s why we’re launching a sustainability campaign.
Q: Factory-design and offsite manufacture can solve many issues surrounding ‘net zero’ housing and reduce the construction sector’s carbon footprint – how are you instilling sustainability into your client conversations?
TC: Offsite manufacturers are much clearer on how they get from their current product to net zero than traditional builders – it’s definitely a bigger leap for traditional. For the MMC industry, sustainability has always been a key selling point and it’s threaded through their processes and products. We’ve just launched an MMC sustainability campaign to provide information, ideas and evidence so housing associations and local
authorities can identify key sustainability standards, pick the outcomes they want to achieve and understand the actions they need to take around MMC. There’s still work to do in terms of communicating the link between MMC and improved environmental standards. People know there is a connection, but they’re often hazy on the standards and terminology – a bit like with offsite. We want to support housing providers by outlining the sustainability benefits of MMC for customers and the climate.
Q: At the heart of Building Better is the aggregation of demand for offsite housing delivery and streamlined procurement routes – what are the benefits of this approach and wider collaboration within the membership?
TC: A member said to me recently that when you have a relatively new approach like offsite, some housing providers must be the torch bearers. MMC requires enough of these torch bearers to step into the arena and work with manufacturers to realise economies of scale. That’s starting to happen. We’re harnessing demand in the sector by giving housing associations and councils confidence they are going down the right route, in the right way.
Another thing members tell us is that the procurement routes we’ve developed with PfH – a MMC Category 1 framework and a MMC Category 2 dynamic purchasing system – remove the hassle factor. Historically, MMC procurement has always been seen as complex – it can slow a project down and add on cost. We wanted to remove the procurement headache for housing providers and offer them a ready-made, compliant route to market that allowed early engagement with the supply chain. Procurement for Housing really know their stuff in this area and the support they give to our members is invaluable.
Q: You have a key role working with the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) on research into standardisation and a ‘kit of parts’ approach – how can these platform approaches and repeatable components deliver building improvements?
TC: I’ve been borrowing a transport analogy to describe the huge variation in offsite. Its seven different categories vary as much as a scooter does from a double-decker bus. For a relatively young industry like this one, a lack of commonality, not just between categories but within them, can get in the way of large-scale adoption.
DLUHC have launched research to develop specifications for standardised MMC components that can be used in housebuilding. Partners are engaging the sector to create a digital kit of parts and I’m chairing a strategic advisory board to guide the research. This open access approach will use a common language that encourages all housing organisations and manufacturers to describe offsite performance and compliance requirements in the same way. It will also tackle the fragmentation of data in MMC which is blocking collaboration. If we get this right, then the benefits include being able to offer more choice through increased interoperability of components and techniques. We’re also hoping to improve resilience and steadiness in the industry and lower risks levels.
Q: What plans has Building Better in place for 2024 and how do you see the offsite sector developing generally over the next 18 months?
TC: There are a number of trends we see developing across offsite including business models becoming clearer, the turnkey offer maturing, and as confidence grows, a move away from an all or nothing approach to MMC. Clients are prepared to take more of a mix and match approach to categories, based on the outcomes they want to achieve.
As an alliance, we have three priorities over the next 18 months. The first is building demand-side capability. The key to moving the dial on delivery through offsite methods is to build confidence and capability within social housing providers’ development teams. We’re doing this by providing hands on, practical support through one-to-one training and workshops.
We’re also developing supply-side resilience. There’s been well-publicised volatility in Category 1, as well as across housebuilding more generally, and that’s something we’re tackling through greater collaboration between traditional and offsite. The first step is to develop a procurement route to traditional contractors who have experience in MMC. The third aim is all about evidencing benefits. Our members have developed a high-level post-occupancy evaluation dashboard of metrics and a feedback loop. We’re collecting data on quality and customer experience of all Building Better homes to prove the benefits of offsite and improve design and delivery of future homes.
For more information on the work of Building Better visit: www.buildingbetter.org.uk
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