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LIFTING & ACCESS
ONTHE
TELE JCB is reaching new heights in telescopic handlers with an extension to its rotating range
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ignificant challenges around materials availability and skilled worker shortages notwithstanding, the housing sector is currently booming. It is a need which is indeed pressing because the market has been languishing in a crisis of affordability for too long, with an imbalance between supply and demand driving up prices, and making the idea of owning a property an unrealistic proposition for far too many people. The government’s has recognised the urgency and set a target of 300,000 new homes to be built every year by the mid2020s and, although completions are moving in the right direction, the current figures are falling well short, with only 220,000 homes delivered in 2020.
Off-site building It is this reality which has precipitated a reevaluation of how new homes are delivered on the ground. MMC (Modern Methods of Construction) – a term which encompasses a range of off-site, near site, and on-site premanufacturing solutions – is far from new but, after years of talk and little action, it is a concept which is now steadily gaining converts. The promise of a quicker and lower cost solution to housebuilding at a time when it is urgently needed has brought on board the likes of Barratt Developments PLC – the company behind Barratt Homes – who recently announced that it is increasing MMC to 30 per cent of its housing completions by 2025, citing time-savings as a key driver.
26 MARCH / APRIL I CPN
There are, in fact, any number of benefits to contractor and developer alike, including a reduction in build schedules, enhanced quality with fewer defects, cuts in energy usage, less waste and safer on site practices, all of which means that even the relatively conservative UK construction sector it’s now taking notice. It is, however, still the case that only 15,000 of those aforementioned 220,000 homes were built using factory or off-site production processes, or just 7 per cent of the total. Having said that, globally, the MMC market is expected to grow from $17 billion in 2020 to $28 billion in 2025 and this
presents the construction equipment industry with some challenges. “Rather than ‘how many’ we need to think about ‘how’,” declares JCB’s Chief Innovation and Growth Officer, Tim Burnhope, “because the equipment required to erect housing using MMC can be very different. Our 13tonne X-Series excavator, the 131X, is just what you need for the initial groundworks, but to get the panels and other prefabricated components in place, you will need outstanding reach, lifting capability, manoeuvrability and versatility. That’s where a new 26m rotating telescopic handler – the JCB 555-260R – comes into its own.”
