L&G (Legal & General) has recently announced they it will invest up to £600 million in factories that will make pre-fabricated houses, out of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). At the moment, £55 million has already been allocated to the first site near Leeds, which will make 3,000 houses annually. They will be able to be installed in a single day.
The CLT is an extremely strong engineered timber product that can be used instead of concrete or steel. CLT has already been used in the UK to construct buildings that are up to 11 storeys high.
This is a highly significant announcement, which should help to reduce the housing shortage in the UK, whilst also increasing demand for timber.
The UK’s housing supply is in crisis, according to L&G. This is a chronic production problem; there aren't enough houses to meet the demand by customers, both young and old. The UK has an annual output of around 130,000 homes, with a requirement for 250,000.
Legal & General is aiming to build thousands of modular houses to help tackle this long term problem. Legal & General Homes 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.
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