Timber frame has come up trumps in the latest round of John Prescott’s Design for Manufacture competition.
The latest three successful bidders to build £60,000 homes on four sites in the UK were announced on the day that Mr Prescott also published a new draft planning policy for housing – PPS3 – which calls for high quality design, speeding up of planning decisions and application of the Code for Sustainable Homes to specific sites.
The Countryside Consortium has been selected as the preferred developer for the Horns Cross site in Dartford, Westbury Homes for the former Park Prewett hospital site in Basingstoke and William Verry for two sites, School Road in Hastings and Oxford Road in Aylesbury Vale.
William Verry has joined forces with German company WeberHaus which produces a panelised timber frame and walling system incorporating floor and wall panels and wood exterior cladding.
This will be the first complete housing project delivered by WeberHaus in the UK. Of 102 homes to be built at Aylesbury Vale, 40 will be £60,000, while five of 12 to be built in Hastings will cost £60,000.
The Countryside Consortium proposes to use the BUMA timber frame system from Poland combined with the panelised Home Factory system to build 37 homes in Dartford, 13 of which will cost £60,000
And in Basingstoke, Westbury Homes will use the Space4 system to build 137 homes, 42 of which will cost £60,000.
Preferred bidders for the remaining two sites, the former Linton Hospital in Maidstone and the Rowan site in Merton, London are expected to be announced in January.
