Linda Farrow from Agile Homes explains how their prefabricated panelised system can deliver high quality and truly affordable homes that are good for the planet.

Interview with Linda Farrow

Linda Farrow and her partner Craig White set up Agile Homes in 2019 to address the need for better housing in the UK. They aim to deliver low-cost homes without sacrificing on quality, and each of their buildings is low carbon, energy efficient and has the ability to be disassembled easily (at the end of its life cycle).

Timber panels with straw in-fill are made off site

Linda explains that at the core of an Agile Home is their Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) panelised system. These panels are prefabricated in a factory and then assembled quickly on site, giving you a watertight structure within a day or two. The use of natural materials like timber and straw ensures that the homes have an extremely low embodied carbon and the panelised nature of the system mean it can be easily customised to meet the client’s needs. This makes it incredibly versatile and can be used for a variety of projects, from a block of flats to a one bedroom bungalow.

Their housing model aims to overcome common challenges

Linda explains that as part of their mission to make good quality and affordable housing accessible in the UK, they needed to identify the current barriers in the construction industry and come up with creative solutions to overcome them.

There is a cultural wariness of adopting renewable materials

England has a romance with brick and block construction that is proving tricky to shift. Even our children’s stories have perpetuated this message by telling us that a house made out of brick will be sturdy whereas a house built from straw and sticks will leave us vulnerable to attack.

This cultural mindset shift will take time to change but as more projects are completed it will keep demonstrating how well natural materials can work.

There is a lack of affordable land to develop

The price of land is currently a major barrier for affordable housing projects and often takes up a large proportion of the budget.

By collaborating with councils, housing associations and charities, Agile Homes works to unlock land at low or no cost for social value. This can quickly reduce the delivery cost by around a third.

It needs to be easier to finance and insure sustainable projects

It can still be a challenge to finance or insure ecological projects because they are deemed higher risk.

So Agile Homes has invested time in developing relationships with companies such as the Ecology Building Society and they are now an approved supplier.

They also gained BOPAS (Build Off-site Property Assurance Scheme) accreditation which is recognised by mortgage lenders as providing the necessary assurance that properties that use modern methods of construction (MMC) will be readily mortgageable for a minimum of 60 years.

Gaining planning consent is not always straightforward

Getting planning permission for a project can be quite involved and take time, which is why Agile Homes have developed a modular solution called TAM which complies with the Caravan Act. This generally means planning permission will not be required because they are moveable rather than permanent structures.

TAM (Transportable Accommodation Module) is a rapid response housing solution

TAM is a prefabricated, rapid-response housing solution.

The modules can be transported ‘flatpack’ to site and assembled quickly, leaving you with a watertight shell in a day or two and operational within a few weeks. Depending on the site and the needs of the client, TAM can also be umbilical to an existing building, using the same power, water and drainage systems without the need for planning permission.

“We’re not quite there yet, but one of our aims is to make it as easy for individuals and community led organisations to buy into our system as if they were going to a car showroom, and they can sign the finance agreement and drive away in their car. So in the same vein, they could sign a finance agreement and have their TAM delivered to their site”

Delivering a ‘turnkey’ solution helps to maintain quality

The larger the development the more likely it is that different companies and sub-contractors will be delivering different aspects. Inevitably this can lead to mistakes or inconsistencies. So at Agile Homes, where possible, they like to control the whole process.

“In essence it’s about control, and making sure that we can deliver the quality of product to the client. If you use a conventional procurement method where you’ve got the design and then you transfer over to a main contractor, the main contractor is incentivised to find all manner of ways to reduce their costs and increase their margin. And that’s not a criticism, that’s just the way the system is set up. We are a values led organisation and our board scrutinises everything that we do carefully. So I think it is about aligning everything that we do with our core value of respect for people and planet. It’s about control throughout the process to make sure that we can deliver to that time after time for our clients.”

LILAC in Leeds

Prefabrication can take place at a ‘pop-up’ factory

The panelised system has been designed so that it can be put together with high end power tools. In certain circumstances – such as at the request of a community led project – they can bring the manufacturing closer to site and create a pop-up factory in empty barns or industrial units. This has the added benefit of upskilling communities who are interested in sustainable building.

The Agile team

The best collaborators have respect for people and planet

“The ideal client would be someone whose values align with ours, so respect for people and planet, someone who has access to substantial amounts of patient capital, who is like us, genuinely interested in providing as many people as possible with homes that are affordable in perpetuity. Because having an affordable home, a safe civil space to be in is the foundation stone, in our view, for sustainable regenerative communities. And climate change is quite rapidly going to be a question of water and food crisis. So there are many, many immense challenges on the horizon for society. We want someone who, like us is very focused on helping society to put in place the foundation stone for us to then have the capacity to deal constructively with all the challenges that are yet to come.”

Inter-governmental policy is needed to be able to deliver widespread affordable housing

Linda explains that the biggest challenge for Agile Homes is access to patient capital and limitations caused by a lack of inter-governmental collaboration on housing policy.

“Governments have a duty in between terms and outside of party political allegiances to look after human beings and the planet. There are some policies that should be negotiated and agreed as being inter governmental.”

The natural materials contribute to a calm environment

Agile Homes has carried out work for local authorities, housing associations and charities, and quite a lot of their residents are vulnerable. This can range from physical disabilities, mental health issues to learning disabilities. So some key feedback they have received is that the natural materials and quality design have created a calm atmosphere which can be of great comfort to anyone but particularly to those with special needs or mental health challenges.

Agile Homes are committed to sustainability from their build system to their business model

Linda explains that Agile Homes aims to create a business model for affordable housing by looking at a wide range of resources which promote sustainability and social value:

• UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Five Capitals Model from Form for the future
• Doughnut Economics
• Small is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher
• Cradle to Cradle
• Bill McDonough

The Agile Homes team is also in the process of finalising their Carbon and Social Value Tokens, which will allow people to offset their carbon emissions in local, sustainable, social developments.

“We’ve been thinking a lot about how to we evidence and generate revenue from the carbon storage that we’re achieving in our buildings and also in the social value that we’re creating. So we’ve been doing work behind the scenes to build calculators and we’re just about to go live with what we call carbon and social value tokens that can potentially be traded. What that means is that we have found clients who are interested in actually buying and paying for the stored carbon and the generated social value as part of their ESG governance systems and processes. So rather than offsetting their carbon footprint by paying for X 1000 trees, in a plantation 1000s of miles away, they’re choosing to buy the carbon that we can evidence is being stored for a minimum 60 year design life in our buildings and I think that’s very exciting. We have plans to use that methodology to generate revenue that can then further reduce the costs of some of our schemes for our most vulnerable clients. We’re really excited about that extension to the model and that rethinking of how do we generate value and revenue in a truly regenerative economy?”

Find out more

Visit the website of Agile Homes

Transcript

Download the transcript of this episode.

Please connect with us

Subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts

Like our Facebook page

Follow us on X