Hager has released a white paper looking at the important role offsite construction can play in meeting the ongoing demand for new housing in the UK.

With the government committing to building 300,000 new homes each year by the middle of this decade, there are already signs that meeting such a target will be a challenge.  As the pressure continues to intensify, the spotlight is focussing on alternative methods to improve efficiencies and productivity in the construction process and speed-up completion of much-needed new homes to meet this demand.

A growing area of interest is the contribution offsite construction of housing stock can make, with experts saying it can play a key role, helping to ease the pressure on traditional building methods.

To help inform the debate, Hager has released a white paper looking at the primary challenges confronting offsite construction and what needs to be addressed to ensure these methods can effectively underpin the country’s housing requirements.

Among the topics covered in the white paper entitled, ‘Come together to build better outcomes’, Hager stresses the need for much closer stakeholder collaboration from an early project stage, a requirement for greater standardisation of products across the supply chain and a demand for higher levels of investment to support the sector.

Jane Yorke at Hager, comments: “Offsite construction has the potential to have a real impact on the productivity and efficiency of UK housing stock delivery.  It will take early and sustained collaboration, partnership, intervention, standardisation and the sharing of best practice knowledge to continue its progress.

“All stakeholders across the supply chain must be mindful of the potential barriers to success. They include building regulation constraint, current procurement practices and existing workforce skill sets.  Our white paper sets out to explore these and help contribute to the ongoing debate so that everyone in the sector can move forward together.”