Homes England is investing £30m in modular homebuilder ilke Homes to turbo-charge production at their factory in Knaresborough, north Yorkshire.

The £30m is being allocated from the national housing agency’s £4.5bn Home Building Fund, and the investment will enable the company to massively scale up its operation. 

By next year, 2,000 modular homes will roll off the company’s production line, rising to 5,000 homes a year within the next five years – potentially making ilke Homes a top 10 UK housebuilder.

The latest deal is part of a government drive to create a centre of excellence in the north for modern methods of construction to help speed-up house building, aiming to create a construction industry which will deliver zero carbon homes and, claim ministers, an industry potentially worth £40bn a year and creating 80,000 new jobs.

Modern methods of construction are a combination of off-site manufacturing and on-site techniques that provide alternatives to traditional house building, allowing homes to be built quickly, be more energy efficient and better designed. It can deliver high-quality housing at pace. By manufacturing off-site, the precision-engineered homes produced by ilke Homes are delivered twice as fast as traditional methods of construction – while creating 90% less waste.

Dave Sheridan, executive chairman at ilke Homes, said: “This deal is testament to the dynamic approach Homes England is taking to address structural issues within our housing and construction industries. The funding will bring in further private capital, creating hundreds more skilled jobs allowing us to build more homes more quickly for first-time buyers. We want to continue driving efficiency, quality and sustainability within the housebuilding industry and see this as a fantastic signal to others wishing to do the same.”

Nick Walkley, chief executive at Homes England, said: “Our role is to be bold and take steps to speed up the delivery of homes across the country and there is huge, untapped potential to unleash by creating more capacity in off-site manufacturing. Modern methods of construction offer enormous benefits to housebuilding and this deal will have a transformational effect on ilke Homes’ production.”