Swan Housing Association were delighted to welcome the newly appointed Minister for Construction, Andrew Stephenson MP, to its modular housing factory in Basildon yesterday. The Minister was greeted by Swan’s Chief Executive John Synnuck; Geoff Pearce, Swan’s Executive Director of Regeneration and Development and the Managing Director of Swan’s modular factory, Paul Williamson.

In his first official visit as Minister, Mr Stephenson took a tour of the factory to learn more about Swan’s precision engineered modular housing, where he saw first-hand the scale of Swan’s operation, which recently moved into double shifts, as well as its approach to delivering more homes, more quickly. Here, the Minister got to see how Swan are delivering these high-quality, precision engineered homes using Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), at 50% of the time of traditional build and at around 10% lower cost.

The Minister then visited Swan’s show homes and Marketing Suite at its Beechwood Village development, to see the finished product. The Sales team showed how Swan’s online “configurator”, allows buyers the opportunity to customise their new home, much as you might build a new car.

Construction Minister, Andrew Stephenson, said: “The use of off-site modular manufacturing is helping us harness new methods of working, delivering on the Government’s Construction Sector Deal to transform the sector’s productivity through innovative technologies and a more highly skilled workforce. The methods being deployed at Swan’s modular housing factory are a testament to the Government’s modern Industrial Strategy, creating a business environment equipped for the challenges and opportunities of new technologies and ways of doing business.”

John Synnuck, Swan’s Chief Executive said: “We were delighted to show Mr Stephenson our factory and show homes today. Swan are committed to delivering modern, high-quality homes that people want to live in, as well as creating sustainable, mixed tenure communities. We are confident that offsite modular manufacturing will enable us to deliver new homes, more quickly, that are both high-quality and sustainable for our customers. I am convinced that offsite will help us ensure more people have a place to feel at home and the Minister’s support for our efforts to invest and innovate in the UK construction industry is most welcome.”

Swan, a registered social housing provider, which was only last week named “Homebuilder of the Year (less 1000 homes per annum) at the National UK Housing Awards”, took the keys to its modular factory in January 2017 and is continuing to deliver modular homes to its Beechwood development, with the first homes due to be occupied in Summer 2019. Later this year Swan will deliver its first modules to its Watts Grove development in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, making Watts Grove the UKs first mid-rise volumetric CLT modular scheme.

To find out more about Swan’s modular factory visit www.nubuild.co.uk