MMC 'too expensive for some SME housebuilders'

Modern methods of construction may prove unattractive to SME housebuilders due to the cost involved and firms’ desire to sell a unique product, the chairman of Stonebond Properties has told Housing Today.

And as well as the approximately 12% premium for building homes using MMC versus traditional methods, Richard Cherry (pictured), chairman of the Essex-based Stonebond, said planning authorities were resistant to the sort of standardisation which can results from offsite manufacturing.

Councils see MMC-built homes and immediately think of prefabs, he said.

“If you’re doing huge volumes then you’re going to be able to drive costs down. But at our level there other priorities,” said Cherry.

Currently building around 50 units a year and planning to increase that to 300 in five years’ time, Stonebond was founded 1975 by Cherry’s father Alan, who had set up Countryside Properties in 1958.

Richard Cherry, who worked at Countryside until a few years ago, said: Stonebond was a “traditional housebuilder. I see the merits of MMC. At Countryside our Midlands and Northern businesses were 100% timber frame.

“But at our level planning authorities in the South and elsewhere are resistant to standardisation.”

And Chris Weedon, Stonebond’s managing director, said delays encountered at the front end – in areas such as planning and the manufacturing process – would probably not help the firm reap the rewards it expected by the end of a development.

“I struggle a little bit on the uniformity of MMC,” said Weedon. “We maintain individuality in our designs, in our sites and houses.

“How are you going to have the sort of individual design that the government and its Building Better, Building Beautiful commission and others are looking for if you go down the modular route?

“I think MMC will have to come up with greater individuality, and I don’t think we are quite there yet,” he added.