Housing Minister Pincher are you serious?

Construction Buzz reports "Christopher Pincher has told the housing sector that he wants the UK to be a “global leader” in Modern Methods of Construction (MMC)." Whilst ACE Modular Construction welcome this news genuinely for the sake of our communities we would be fascinated to hear his strategy, how to overcome many obstacles dealing with the current antiquated construction system working with local authorities and developers. The governments healthy budget for housing was published before the reality of the biggest pandemic to hit the world since Spanish Flu 100 years ago.

"Speaking to the Northern Housing Consortium’s Modern Methods of Construction webinar, the Housing Minister set out his vision for how the future of housing could look, with MMC very much at the core." We wonder how much of the ￡12 Billion set aside will be left of the housing budget? Without international investment and collaboration with overseas OSM Super Powers this is simply not possible surely? Am I missing something here?

We admire Mr Pincher's enthusiasm and would love to share our experience of the worlds largest OSM's we have partnered with but what is the reality of his comments happening before never mind now the worlds pandemic?

The UK is decades behind already when it comes to OSM and whilst stating the obvious throughout the interview I had to read it again thinking we are going round in circles here and how old was the article? Comments including "reconvene when the pandemic and that we are on course to build 300,000 homes by 2023 and a million new homes by the end of this parliament" How?

"While impressed that there are 220 MMC factories in the Northern Corridor, Pincher said he would “hope to see more in the Midlands” and encouraged the sector to help SMEs enter the MMC market. How many homes can they build per annum? Very few compared to the huge target set by government. How will the government be able to assist more factories in the Midlands? It is not possible surely after this Pandemic? Where is all this money coming from for investment with an endless supply of money that isn't there due to mass unemployment thousands of companies going out of business.

When quizzed after on how many numbers he hopes to see being built by Modern Methods of Construction, Pincher said: “I think first of all we need to see how quickly we can get up to scale. Only with overseas OSM & investment collaboration I believe this is a valid point. It is all about genuine collaboration with the UK and having met 50 OSM's in the world the co-ordination of this would be epic, facilitating OSM where possible included in an MMC strategic plan.

“I know Barclay’s has got plans to build their own facilities, that is a good sign for the sector generally because it shows there is appetite to build MMC at scale. That means the whole supply chain can benefit.” Plans? It has been built we read months ago. And it's for their own projects as far as we are aware not for other developers to tap in to. We commend Barclay's for their initiative and encourage the government to support more homegrown OSM's but again where will the funding come from?

I would be delighted to discuss this over the phone with Mr Pincher, to share our experience of meeting the worlds successful and largest OSM's. As part of a master plan OSM will contribute towards MMC and certainly not without other methods. We want to help!