Why MMC has a huge role to play in levelling up

COMMENT The government’s Levelling Up white paper has laid bare what most of us already knew – the UK is hugely unequal, and to fix this, there must be a profound focus on delivering high-quality housing, jobs and innovation. Although there is no one-stop-shop solution to levelling up, it is imperative that ministers recognise the role modern methods of construction have to play in achieving some of the self-appointed short-term deadlines by 2030. The white paper has ambitious plans, although it is not entirely clear where the required funding will come from. Included in the document is a commitment for domestic public investment in research and development outside the South East to rise by at least 40% by 2030. Some of this must be directed at bringing house building into the 21st century so that society’s biggest inequalities – such as cost-of-living and regional variations in health expectancies – can be levelled up. The North of England – where the UK’s MMC sector has a critical mass – has a huge role to play here. It was only three years ago that then-housing minister Esther McVey launched a “centre of excellence” for MMC across the region. The MP’s announcement came on the same day that we announced Homes England, the government’s housing agency, had invested £30m into ilke Homes to boost our production capacity. Homebodies Our abodes are hugely influential on our health. Before the pandemic struck, Britons spent just nine hours at home on an average day. Social distancing guidelines and a shift to hybrid working patterns means this has increased by 35%. Therefore we, as an industry, must be striving to deliver homes that enhance wellbeing – whether physically, mentally or financially – so as to help the government achieve its aim to reduce regional variations. By harnessing artificial intelligence, robotics and low-carbon technologies, ilke Homes is able to deliver homes that are incredibly airtight and cheap to power. In fact, we are now capable of delivering a house type that promises zero energy bills. This could go a long way in tackling regional inequalities, especially in regard to the cost-of-living crisis, which is set to plunge more than six million households into fuel poverty. Regional equalities also exist in terms of unemployment, as noted by the white paper. In the North East, the unemployment rate stands at nearly 7% – two percentage points higher than the national average. No cutting or hobbling A newfound focus on pushing innovation in the North will help counter this. Take ilke Homes as a case study – we are creating up to 500 skilled, green jobs at our factory in Yorkshire. The skills being taught are highly transferable too, meaning we are helping to create a manufacturing workforce capable of helping to power the green industrial revolution. As Boris Johnson put it: “The answer to [levelling-up] lies not in cutting down the tall poppies, or attempting to hobble the areas that are doing well.” The government should not look to level up at the expense of other regions that contribute significantly to the exchequer. Instead, policymakers must take a joined-up approach, by which the UK works together as a whole to tackle some of the most pressing societal issues. Only then will we truly level up. Dave Sheridan is executive chairman at ilke Homes