ilke Homes secures largest opportunity to date as it continues expansion in the South East.

Leading modular housing company ilke Homes has secured a 14.5-acre site in Southend-on-Sea where the company plans to deliver up to 225 affordable, environmentally-friendly family homes for the local community.

Subject to planning consent, all of the houses being delivered will be manufactured offsite at ilke Homes’ 250,000 sq. ft factory in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire – a facility that the Government invested £30 million in in 2019 as part of its ambitions to innovate UK housebuilding by diversifying the supply of new housing.

The news of ilke Homes’ continued expansion follows last week’s announcement that Stephen Stone, former chief executive at FTSE250 housebuilder Crest Nicholson, has joined the company’s board to help forge more partnerships with institutional investors, developers, councils and housing associations.

Delivering more affordable housing in Southend is vital. According to Rightmove, the average asking price for a home in the region stands at £321,225. In the last year alone, house prices in the region have skyrocketed by 11 percent. 

Acting as a full ‘turnkey’ developer, ilke Homes will manage the entire development process – from securing the land and gaining planning permission, to developing the site and delivering the homes. As part of the company’s development offering, launched last year, ilke Homes is already well on its way to deliver over 1,000 homes for a mix of clients including the UK’s largest housing associations and institutional investors, as well as local councils. 

By manufacturing offsite, ilke Homes is able to cut delivery times by up to half compared to traditional methods, and therefore offers clients more certainty over construction programmes – as the end-to-end progress is less susceptible to things such as adverse weather conditions.

An increasing number of housing associations are choosing to deliver schemes using offsite manufacturing, where homes are precision-engineered along production lines, due to:

• Quality: The precision-engineering techniques employed in the factory mean that the finish of every home is to an exceptional standard
• Sustainability: Housing associations are under increasing pressure to reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint of the homes they manage. All of ilke’s homes achieve the highest EPC ratings, either an ‘A’ or ‘B’, meaning housing associations will not have to undergo costly retrofitting programmes once new building regulations come into force in 2025
• Speed: Short and certain construction programmes mean revenue streams can be accessed as soon as possible, allowing them to reinvest the income into new affordable housing

The site is the second that ilke Homes has secured in Essex in as many months, as it looks to quickly grow its portfolio in the South East and ramp up the delivery of well-designed, affordable housing in the region. In January, the company announced it had secured a 15-acre site in Stanford-le-Hope, Thurrock to deliver 153 family homes.

Following positive early engagement with Southend Borough Council, ilke Homes will be progressing with a detailed planning application which is on target to be submitted in late March. The application will set out the company’s plans to deliver a mix of one and two-bedroom apartments, and two, three and four-bedroom homes on the site. Subject to the granting of planning permission, Ilke Homes anticipate being on site in the summer of 2022.

ilke Homes is said to already be in conversation with a top 10 national housing association as a potential buyer for all the homes to be provided. The company has struck a number of sector-defining deals with housing associations over the last few years, including a £100 million deal with Places for People and a £23 million deal with Stonewater.

Homes England, the Government’s national housing agency, has been championing modular housing as a solution to speeding up the delivery of affordable housing across the UK. Last year, the Government’s national housing agency announced that housing associations looking to sign deals under the new £11.5 billion Affordable Housing Programme will have to commit to using modern methods of construction (MMC) to deliver at least a quarter of their pipelines.

 Tom Heathcote, executive director of development at ilke Homes, says:

“This is fantastic news for our south east regional team, and a fantastic opportunity for ilke Homes to work with Southend on Sea Borough Council and its wider stakeholders in order to deliver a sustainable and design led scheme which will provide much needed affordable homes for the local community.” 

-ENDS-

Notes to editors

ilke Homes is a modular housing company helping to tackle the UK’s growing housing shortage by manufacturing and delivering high-quality, energy-efficient homes in half the time of traditional methods. The company works closely with local authorities, housing associations and developers across the UK to deliver housing for a mix of tenures. In 2019, the company entered into a £100m joint venture with Places for People, the largest deal yet for Britain’s modular housing sector and received a £30m investment from the government’s housing agency, Homes England. www.ilkehomes.co.uk