Balfour Beatty’s latest policy paper is called “25% by 2025:Streamlined construction - seven steps to offsite and modular building”. Chief executive Leo Quinn argues that while a shift to offsite construction would create efficiencies, it would also create more jobs overall.

“On a national level, industrialised construction would lead to the creation of thousands of jobs across the country over the next few years- if we invest now. Whereas today, many of those using prefabrication and modular approaches are forced to import products due to the lack of capacity in the UK market, new factories established in areas of economic need across Britain could rapidly boost local economies and upskill local workforces. If we get this right, the ‘by-product’ is thus a new expertise for the UK and a massive export opportunity,” he says.

He continues: “At Balfour Beatty, we believe that if we donot find a way as a country to commit more firmly to this agenda we will missthe opportunity to reap its game-changing benefits and allow overseascompetitors – in many cases more advanced in this area than our domesticcompanies – to steal a march on us. To address the existing barriers – from thereluctance of procurers to use it and the lack of capacity in the UK market toproduce it – the time has come to move beyond traditional constructionmind-sets and create a virtuous triangle – among designers/specifiers,customers and the construction supply chain.

“More must be done to educate and inform – both to build theevidence base about the benefits of offsite and modular building, and also toimprove understanding about elements which are key to success, such as the needto aggregate schemes over a longer timeframe rather than dealing with eachscheme individually; the importance of building in repeatability and the needfor a more collaborative, less adversarial approach in commissioninginfrastructure.”

Source: The Construction Index

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