Building better offsite

Building Better, an alliance of 29 housing associations and councils, supported by the National Housing Federation, has launched its offsite social housing DPS.

The partnership has appointed an initial six manufacturers – Future Built, LoCal Homes, Project Etopia, Roe Timberframe, Sigmat and Starship – to its new dynamic purchasing system (DPS) for MMC category 2 construction systems.

£600M DPS

The DPS is worth £600M over four years and will run in parallel with Building Better’s first MMC framework which launched in July 2021 and covers category 1 volumetric 3D systems. The alliance aims to give members access to a range of different MMC solutions so they can find the right one for their site.

Building Better took the decision to create a DPS, not a fixed framework, so panelised manufacturers can join at any point during the term of the DPS. The category 2 segment of the offsite market is evolving rapidly with new products and manufacturers emerging all the time. By setting up a DPS, social housing providers can access the latest solutions and suppliers as they come to market.

900 MMC homes

Over 215,000 homes are managed by the 29 housing associations and local authorities that make up Building Better.

Since the launch of its volumetric framework in 2021, alliance members have put nearly 40 schemes through it, getting costs on over 900 MMC homes. With the launch of its DPS, Building Better will help the social housing sector to produce around 5,000 MMC properties by 2026.

Major benefits

John Bellamy, Category Manager for Construction & Sustainability at Procurement for Housing (PfH) said: “A major benefit of setting up a DPS is the learning. As an alliance, we’ll be able to grow our understanding of what housing organisations actually require with category 2 and the technical solutions they gravitate to. Creating a framework now would have meant guessing the answers. But a DPS allows us to gather data and feedback on products and manufacturers, educating ourselves and helping us to normalise offsite and use it at scale across the sector.”

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