Section: Building & Regeneration

£60,000 House Challenge Winners

Plans for £60,000 homes became a reality when the successful bidders for the first four sites were announced in the Design for Manufacture competition.

Following tough competition from the six bidders involved at this stage, Barratt Developments, George Wimpey UK, and the SIXTYK Consortium (Crest Nicholson and Kingspan Offsite) were selected by national regeneration agency English Partnerships to build their Design for Manufacture homes on four of ten publicly-owned competition sites.

These first four competition sites will see the creation of more than 500 homes. At least 30% of homes on each site will be built to a construction cost of £60,000. The remainder will be a mix of smaller and larger homes constructed with similar cost efficiencies. Overall, the competition will see the construction of more than 1,000 new properties.

Key features from the chosen homes include:

Flexible floor plans, providing homes that can adapt to their occupiers' changing lifestyles, e.g., the house proposed by Barratt with a room in the roof and double height living room, and homes with no internal structural walls.
'Eco-hats', like those proposed by George Wimpey and SIXTYK - central lanterns, built into the roofs of homes, that allow more natural light in to help manage heat more effectively.
Built in surveillance, where home designs enable a good view onto the street from inside the home, in keeping with the requirements of the Secured by Design standard.
Good accessibility, enabling wheelchair access around the home, or the flexibility to make changes such as the installation of a lift.

All the winning homes achieve EcoHomes 'very good' or 'excellent' standard.

The preferred bidders for a further six sites are expected to be announced by January 2006. A publication highlighting the lessons learnt from the competition, together with a public exhibition to showcase the £60,000 home designs, is also planned.

Information Notes

The Design for Manufacture competition is the Government's challenge to the house-building industry to build a home for a construction cost of £60,000. Over 100 companies took part in the first stage of the competition, with 33 bidders short-listed to the second stage.
On 9 August 2005, the Deputy Prime Minister unveiled the nine successful organisations and consortia who had met the Design for Manufacture challenge and were invited to bid to build on one or more of the ten publicly owned sites available through the competition, generating over 1,000 new homes.

Website address: www.designformanufacture.info

Scheme Update

Lovell started work on a £10 million housing scheme in partnership with East Midlands HA in the village of Danesmoor, south of Chesterfield. The development will create 90 two, three, and four-bedroom houses, including 63 homes for open market sale, and 27 homes for shared ownership through East Midlands HA.
Higgins Construction was appointed by Circle Anglia as the main contractor in its £2.9 million development of 29 new homes in Old Newton in Suffolk. Work on the new scheme is due to start in January.

Section: Building & Regeneration

£60,000 House Challenge Winners

Information Notes

Scheme Update

Housing Monthly Diary

Reporting on Oct./Nov. 2005

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