A new Legal & General Capital (LGC) business has been launched to operate in the modular housing sector.
Legal & General Homes will provide “modern, precision engineered factory manufactured houses” through its new factory in the North of England. The new business has signed a long-term lease with Logicor on a 550,000 sq ft warehouse in Sherburn-in- Elmet, 15 miles east of Leeds, representing the largest modular homes construction factory in the world.
Initially employing 400 to 500 local people, it expects to deliver its first houses from the factory in June.
Paul Stanworth, managing director of Legal & General Capital, said: “Sustainable, durable modern materials and proven technology will enable us to create high-quality homes meeting a wide range of housing needs and help solve the UK’s housing crisis. Modern modular housing in the UK has so far been restricted to the top end of the market: the scale of our Sherburn facility will enable many more people to benefit from new, environmentally- friendly construction techniques which have already become mainstream in Europe.”
It will produce homes tailored to meet customers’ designs and needs, ranging from 20-storey apartment blocks to rows of terraced, semi-detached and detached houses. The technology has been used across Europe, including countries such as Austria, Germany and Scandinavia where off-site manufacturing of housing is increasingly common place.
Tom Ground, chief executive of Legal & General Homes, said: ”Legal & General Homes aims to deliver a new solution to the problems we face in the UK, addressing the shortage of suitable, affordable and sustainable housing by manufacturing higher quality, energy efficient, lower cost housing.”