Keepmoat and Elliott Group launch modular homes builder ILKE Homes

Keepmoat has launched ILKE Homes, an offsite homes joint venture with Elliott, a modular homes specialist. They’ll contribute to the government’s housing supply targets through speed of completion, lack of reliance on limited construction labour and the ability to get around obstacles on stalled sites.

The hope is that it can accelerate estate regeneration, provide new homes alongside existing buildings and unlock small infill sites. ILKE will also provide homes that blend into both suburban and rural sites.  

On 10 May the company unveiled its pilot scheme of 60 units which are being built at their Yorkshire factory.

They’ll be installed on five sites for five ‘key clients’ including a mixture of housing associations, local authorities and Keepmoat’s own housebuilding company, Keepmoat Homes.

Ambitious plans for affordable housing construction 

The company are intending to manufacture over 750 affordable low-rise homes per year within three years. The ability to install up to ten homes per site per day can save as much as six months on a 50-home development.

The modules offer high performance two and three storey terraced or semi-detached houses and flats with multiple variations, for the same cost as a traditionally built home. The units will be quiet, airtight, super-insulated and with running costs one third of the average UK home. 

An option to upgrade to zero carbon homes standard through the addition of factory-installed solar photovoltaic panels will reduce running costs to as little as £100 per year, less than one tenth of the average UK home.

LABC Warranty is working with ILKE Homes to ensure mortgageability can be achieved using their 10 and 12 year structural warranties.

Social or affordable homes provider? Find out what LABC can do for you

Standardisation and flexibility are the key

Keepmoat CEO, Dave Sheridan, said “the 60 units would allow the company to test the products at the installation and usability stages between now and December, before it embarks on a bigger quantity of units next year.”

Elliott CEO, Lee Newman, added “The key to the success of any modular solution is to have it fully designed for manufacture. What ILKE Homes does so well is in combining that basic standardisation with sufficient flexibility to meet landlord and market requirements, as well as the ability to blend in with local architecture across the UK.”

Both Keepmoat Regeneration and Keepmoat Homes are committed to using the ILKE Homes system, which will be available to housing associations, local authorities and build-to-rent landlords through Keepmoat Regeneration and sold to the public on Keepmoat Homes sites.

Further information

Follow ILKE Homes on Twitter and read LABC President Paul Everall's take on How the construction industry can improve the quality of UK housing