The Roundtable Series, Housing at Speed

If we want policy that works, we have to begin with people. Not with reports or strategies, but with the reality behind the statistics, families moved five or ten times in a year, children losing school places again and again, and one child in every urban classroom waking up in temporary accommodation.

This is why the Offsite Alliance exists. If we want to build differently, faster, and better, we need to listen to the people who actually deliver and connect the entire ecosystem around them.

So back in September, we brought policy makers, housing associations, MMC manufacturers, contractors, architects, and suppliers into one room for a series of honest, open roundtables. Everyone was mic’d. Even the audience had their say.

Everyone contributed. And we simply listened.

What came out of those conversations is now captured in our Ripple Effect podcast, lessons from the factory, the site, and the teams delivering, a grounded look at what is really happening, what is working, and what needs to change next. Today, we begin with housing at speed.

£39bn over ten years and 300,000 new homes, the government’s new Social and Affordable Homes Programme is the biggest in a generation. A genuine opportunity. And the consensus around the table was clear: the money is there, the need is urgent, the capacity exists.

What is missing is the join-up.

The most important part of the conversation was not the blockers; it was the solutions the room offered.

Edward Jezeph from Homes England set the tone early.

“This programme is deliberately long term,” he said. “£39bn over ten years gives housing associations the space to plan, buy land, and form the partnerships they need to deliver at scale.”

It means nothing, though, if factories remain locked out of the real decision making. Angela Mansell summed up the feeling across the room.

“Everyone’s talking about what we’re going to do,” she said. “Nobody’s focusing on how we’re going to do it.”

And the how depends almost entirely on early engagement.

Manufacturers around the table were united. Designing with MMC from day one makes everything easier, risk drops, interfaces shrink, sequencing improves, and the whole programme becomes more predictable.

“It’s dead simple, that’s all we ask for,” Paul Roddick said. “Be early. Engage us early because we can swing the needle most at meeting one than we can post-planning.”

Ben Townend reinforced it. “If we are serious about consistency and compliance, we have to stop bringing manufacturers in at the end.”

Alongside early engagement came the next big theme, consistent, reliable pipelines. Factories can only industrialise when they can plan. Lucas from Boutique Modern put it clearly, having delivered with the same local authority for eight years. That consistency, he said, let them grow from 5 homes to 100. “It takes time and trust, but once it’s there, everything gets easier.”

Ben then offered one of the simplest, most practical ways to unlock value. “Ask clients to bring out their problems,” he said. “What do you need help to prevent next time? We’ve got answers to that. We know how to stop homes getting mouldy, how to retain heat, how to deliver fire performance. Bring the problems and we’ll show you the value.” It was one of the strongest solutions of the day, and it landed.

Procurement was the biggest shared frustration, but again, the table steered quickly towards solutions. Not more rules, but smarter ones, ones that reward outcomes, not process, ones that value speed, quality, safety, carbon, consistency, not just price on a single day. Jimmy Overill captured the frustration well,

“You get promised the world, but four years later, you’ve had two coffees out of it.”

But others built on it constructively, arguing that if clients begin by defining the outcomes they actually want, the right delivery route becomes obvious.

Another major thread running through the discussion was systemisation, a way to scale intelligently. Not sameness, not cookie-cutter homes, but consistent performance, consistent specification, repeatable build-ups, and predictable interfaces. Angela described it best. “We start with systemisation. That gives you consistency in performance. Standardisation comes later, and only if it makes sense.” Ben added, “It’s not about identical homes. It’s about consistent performance and common items so everyone knows what they’re looking at.”

The panel also drilled into the reality of risk, and agreed almost unanimously that the biggest challenges begin in the ground. If the foundations are not designed for the system, MMC gets blamed later. Paul was clear, “If we design the foundations before we design the building, everything works. If we don’t, we lose 20 to 30 percent of value before we even start.”

Place shaped the conversation too. In Greater Manchester, 98 percent of future homes will be on brownfield land. Contamination, infrastructure, planning, environmental approvals, and regulatory friction all slow down delivery unless the whole system is aligned. Devolution could help, many felt, but only if accompanied by real powers and capacity.

Skills joined the dots. Factories can train and grow people, but only with stable demand. Stop start pipelines create stop start skills. And the ecosystem feels every shock.

By the end of the discussion, the wish list was clear, earlier engagement, better procurement, rewarding outcomes, consistent demand, aligned design and groundwork, evidence sharing, and deeper, long-term partnerships.

The energy in the room was overwhelmingly constructive. As one speaker put it,

“There’s enough proof of concept out there now, but we don’t share it. Let’s show clients what we can do.”

Because this cannot just be about homes. It is about children, families, communities, dignity, and opportunity. Every home we build gives someone more than a roof, it gives a foundation for a life that can grow.

We already have the capability. We already have the capacity. Now we need to connect it.

And as Gaynor closed the session, build, baby, build.

To listen to the whole discussion, you can find it by listening to our Ripple Effect Podcast

THE RIPPLE EFFECT | The Offsite Alliance

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