Legal and General abandon off-site house building in Yorkshire

In stark contrast to our recent celebration of investment in Top Hat the off-site housebuilders, the news that L & G have abandoned their offsite house-building operation in the factory near Leeds is a blow to supporters of off-site modern methods of construction, and is being blamed on planning delays and lack of demand. This is the latest in a series of loss-making forays into MMC, and is starting to expose the fragilities of the whole process.

The nature of our planning system, the wide range of character of our cities, towns and villages and the requirement for community decisions in all matters 'Housing' means that there is very little opportunity to build repetitive houses on a large scale, and to be fair, if you look at the images of the modules in construction and the final installed units, there is not a lot to encourage you to want to live in them, unless you are being housed by a social landlord and your rent is subsidised!

This together with the fact that it is still much more expensive to use MMC than traditional bricks/blocks and mortar, is a recipe which appears to be doomed. The good news however is that the factory was clearly designed and construction with a 'distribution' fall-back in mind, and so once the factory is shut, the majority of staff redundant and the L & G have swallowed their £176 million in losses, if they still own the building they can soon rent it back at a high premium to Amazon and continue the systematic demise of the Great British High Street.....