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news UK housing market faces challenging 2019, warn experts The UK housing market is unlikely to see much change in 2019 with a continuation of weakening sales activity, according to the RICS UK Residential Housing Forecast 2019. The UK housing market has lacked impetus in 2018, having continued to struggle with a lack of homes on estate agents books; affordability issues; uncertainty caused by Brexit; and prospective interest rate rises. Looking ahead, it is unlikely that sales will grow in 2019. In the past two years, sales activity has declined, and annual completed transactions remain significantly below the 1.7million high reached in 2006. Given the obstacles in the current market it is anticipated that activity will weaken further. As sales activity continues to falter, house price growth will continue to fade in the first half of the year and is expected to come to a standstill by mid-2019. As such, the RICS Housing Forecast 2019 suggests prices will neither grow nor fall in the near future (0%). The stagnation of house prices is underpinned by the lack of new properties being listed for sale. In the second-hand market, not enough properties have been listed to replenish those sold. This has been evident in the RICS data throughout 2018, as average stock levels remain near all-time record lows. The number of new properties being listed for sale has fallen consistently, and in November, almost half of survey participants reported the number of market appraisals undertaken over the month was down on the year before. All these indicators suggest it is unlikely that the coming months will see a marked increase in supply across the second-hand market. Saint-Gobain acquires SIG Roofspace to deliver more off-site manufactured solutions for housebuilders Saint-Gobain UK & Ireland completed the acquisition of SIG Roofspace Solutions on the 14th December 2018. The business, set-up in 2008 provides a turn-key panelised roofing and room-in-roof solution to house builders. Mike Chaldecott, Saint-Gobain UK & Ireland CEO said "We're delighted to welcome Roofspace to Saint-Gobain. They are a great business that provides solutions to customers that saves them time and streamlines the construction process. We know that the construction industry has to be more efficient, more productive, more innovative and embrace off-site manufacturing. Roofspace are already offering customers these benefits and have delivered roofs for over 2,500 new build homes in the last year". "Roofspace further accelerates our capability to serve the rapidly expanding off-site manufacturing sector adding to our expertise which already includes our Pasquill business, and their timber roof-trusses, Scotframe's timber-frame houses and Saint-Gobain steel-frame systems". SIG Roofspace Solutions will now be known as Roofspace. Slower rise in commercial work weighs on construction growth at the end of 2018 UK construction firms indicated a disappointing end to 2018 as business activity growth eased to a three-month low and new orders expanded at a relatively subdued pace. The main bright spot was a sustained rebound in civil engineering activity, which rose at the fastest pace since May 2017. Business optimism also picked up in December. The degree of confidence was the highest since last April and well above the near six-year low seen in October. Survey respondents cited hopes of a boost to growth from work on big-ticket transport and energy infrastructure projects in 2019. At 52.8 in December, down from 53.4 in November, the headline seasonally adjusted HIS Markit/CIPS UK Construction Total Activity Index posted above the crucial 50.0 no-change value for the ninth consecutive month. Anecdotal evidence suggested that subdued demand conditions were the main factor behind softer output growth in December. There were also some reports that unusually wet weather had acted as a brake on construction work. Intelligent systems will help UK transition to clean and affordable energy New small-scale renewable electricity providers to be guaranteed payment for excess electricity supplied to the grid under new government proposals – protecting consumers from unfair costs associated with current scheme. Plans for Smart Export Guarantee could build a bridge to the smarter energy system of the future, which can help unlock technological innovations like home energy storage and more efficient electric vehicle charging. Households and businesses installing new solar panels will be guaranteed payment for power provided back to the grid under government proposals set out this week to unlock the smart energy systems of the future- an important upgrade to the current Feed-in Tariffs scheme. The proposed ‘Smart Export Guarantee’ (SEG) would replace the existing ‘Feed-in Tariff’ scheme (FIT), with electricity suppliers paying new small-scale energy producers for excess electricity from homes and businesses being put back into the energy grid. The new scheme could create a whole new market, encouraging suppliers to competitively bid for this electricity, giving exporters the best market price while providing the local grid with more clean, green energy, unlocking greater choice and control for solar households over buying and selling their electricity. 4 Feb 2019 <strong>M11</strong>
London overtaken by rest of Britain in housebuilding growth London’s homebuilders have been outpaced by the rest of Great Britain as investment in housebuilding dropped to its lowest value in six years. Residential contracts awarded in London in 2017 were 34% lower than the value awarded in 2016, which is in contrast to the majority of regions outside of the capital that experienced growth. Although London is the largest regional GB economy, and had £3.6 billion of residential contracts awarded in 2017, an increase in demand for new homes is coming from areas such as Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield as they undergo city centre regeneration projects. Across all GB regions, London came bottom for residential contracts growth, with overall values falling by 33.9% from 2016 to 2017. Rebecca Larkin, Construction Products Association Senior Economist said “London has slipped from its position as a residential star performer as the slowdown in inner and outer London housing markets appears to have cooled developer confidence. House prices in the capital have been falling since the middle of 2017, but this is unlikely to ease affordability constraints. The average London house price is more than double that in the North West, West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humber, and combined with stronger uptake of Help to Buy in these regions, is helping to underpin regional housing demand.” Inner-city building sites can be an oasis of peace and tranquillity Volumetric Modular in-fill city homes are fast to install with minimum of noise and disruption to the surrounding area. Building sites are usually noisy, dirty and very disruptive to the community in which they are located, so neighbours rarely welcome them even when new housing is desperately needed. But it does not have to be like that as Brian Maunder of pioneering construction company Totally Modular Ltd explains: “Volumetric construction is a technique in which houses are built off-site and delivered as complete ready to go modules. They are craned onto prepared foundations and connected to the utilities. In a matter of hours, they are ready for occupation. “As well as houses, blocks of flats can be built in exactly the same way, with each flat being a module that can be stacked and arranged in almost any configuration up to 11 storeys high (although currently most projects are low rise). This is possible because all units are built around an incredibly strong three-dimensional steel frame. Modular village to be built in Corby for London commuters Groundworks have started on a new modular village in Corby, Northants targeted at London commuters. The 47 homes will be built at Priors Hall Park by modular specialist Project Etopia who took over the site when a previous eco-homes scheme stalled. Etopia Corby will contain 31 houses and 16 apartments with a 4-bed expected to sell for between £320,000 and £350,000. Factory construction of exterior shells of the new homes will start in February and the first four homes are due to be completed by the end of March with each unit taking no more than six to eight weeks to build. Joseph Daniels, CEO of Project Etopia, said "Corby is leading the way in showing how villages of the future should be built. Modular building is now so advanced, it is senseless to cling to bricks and mortar, which takes longer to build and is far more expensive. "Commuter villages like this offer younger would-be homeowners the wage benefits of working in the capital but without the high property costs, and Etopia Corby will be a model other councils can follow." Construction output rises despite Brexit uncertainty The Government must not be complacent about the damage a ‘no deal’ Brexit would cause amid positive signs of growth in the UK construction industry, says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB). Commenting on recent construction output figures published by the Office for National Statistics, Sarah McMonagle, Director of External Affairs at the FMB, said “The UK construction sector grew by 2.1 per cent during September to November 2018 compared with the previous three months. This is despite unparalleled levels of political uncertainty around the very real prospect of a ‘no deal’ scenario. However, we are urging the Government not to allow these results to create a false sense of security. Since November, political uncertainty has cranked up and is increasing every day. A growing and prosperous construction sector will be a distant memory if the Government allows the UK to crash out of the EU without a deal in place.” DfE shares plans for £2bn offsite schools framework The government's Department for Education is planning an industry meeting to discuss its plans for a £2bn offsite schools framework. The Department for Education (DfE) plans to set up a four-year framework for the delivery of schools by design for manufacture and assembly and/or offsite methods. It will follow on from the DfE's existing component school frameworks and supplement the existing DfE construction framework. The DfE anticipates, subject to consultation, that any new framework will be larger than the previous frameworks with a target to deliver up to a 100 new school projects a year by 2023. It will be based on a greater degree of standardisation and focused on a manufactured offsite solution, to improve quality and efficiency to deliver programme and value savings. It will also be open to a greater number of suppliers and different methods of offsite construction, including modular and portable buildings, kit buildings and prefabricated componentry. Feb 2019 <strong>M11</strong> 5
Page 1 and 2: MMC MODERN METHODS OF CONSTRUCTION
Page 3: Feb 2019 issue M11 The construction
Page 7 and 8: …Thermomass®panels are thermally
Page 9 and 10: minutes not days.
Page 11 and 12: USING OFF SITE CON STRUCT TION PROD
Page 13 and 14: Apple Park The $5 billion campus co
Page 15 and 16: Need more teaching space? WERNICK I
Page 17 and 18: College Avenue: Setting the standar
Page 19 and 20: SMART CLADDING SYSTEM Cladding EASY
Page 21 and 22: S M A R T C O N N E C T E D S O L U
Page 23 and 24: Heating, Ventilation & Indoor Air Q
Page 25 and 26: Taking Building Services Offsite! K
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Page 29 and 30: New thinking for modular sector As
Page 31 and 32: Stargard The original“Warm to the
Page 33 and 34: The design of an effective airtight
Page 35 and 36: tools & equipment Quality is the ma
Page 37 and 38: SIP design & manufacture Full house
Page 39 and 40: Award winning Scottish window and d
Page 41 and 42: “A typical floor on a detached ho
Page 43 and 44: In London, less than 5,500 affordab
Page 45 and 46: Modern Methods of Construction We w
Page 48 and 49: product news Hadley Group acquires
Page 50: article OFFSITE MANUFACTURING VITAL

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