Prefabs

They've got to be interesting, varied, close together, ecological, factory-made and there's got to be lots of them. There are specs in abundance.

John Prescott has been pushing the building industry to use prefabrication in order to meet government housing targets. But while some of the prefabs have won awards - others are reported already to be leaking and showing structural problems.

There are fears we are repeating the housing disasters of the 50s and 60s.

David Sillito reported.

DAVID SILLITO:
Welcome to the future. This is the Lacuna development near West Malling in Kent. It's an example of what the Government wants more of. Varied, interesting houses - houses that are closer together. It's a place designed for walking and getting to know your neighbours.

So, how long have you been here?

NINA EVANS:
Resident
Just over a year.

DAVID SILLITO:
Hmm, so are you enjoying it?

NINA EVANS:
Yes, we are very happy here. The main reason we moved here was because of a sense of security and having two children, it's very...

DAVID SILLITO:
You've got all the neighbours nearby.

NINA EVANS:
Yup, so we're... as much as you're overlooked, in a way it is a good thing because you know everyone is sort of looking out for each other and it is nice and safe.

DAVID SILLITO:
So here it is, a vision of the future. A lot of houses on a small amount of land, yet it's got a sense of community. You can cycle to the local shops and offices. It's, well, exactly what the Government has been looking for.

There's only one problem - they can't build enough of them. The Government may be forcing developers to pack more houses on to a site, but we're still only building around 150,000 houses a year. The target to meet demand is closer to 250,000.

ANDY WIBLING:
Environ Sunley Homes
There is a huge skill shortage in this country. The design requirements we've got here, we have 27 different house types. We've got a variation of every house type to optimise the overlooking issues, and to make sure they've got an area of privacy in their garden, they get the sun deck, so that's a very complex nature. So we need a lot of skilled people, a lot of skilled people who care. With the skills shortage in this country, it seemed that one of the ways of reducing the risk of that was to actually go for factory-built homes.

DAVID SILLITO:
It's turned to prefabrication. Its latest houses are made in a factory in Canada, shipped to Britain and then assembled. The speed of construction goes from 32 weeks to 14. The number of defects is lower, it meets new environmental building regulations. And the end product? Well, it looks just like the traditional houses.

This is Beaufort House in Fulham in London.

UNNAMED FEMALE:
You can see into the courtyard.

UNNAMED MAN:
Are these prefabricated?

DAVID SILLITO:
They certainly are and the Peabody Trust who built it are very keen on the idea, especially when it's so widely used in America, Japan and the continent.

DICKON ROBINSON:
Peabody Trust
What we are talking about is a complete transformation of the construction industry. We are not talking about building homes, we are talking about manufacturing them in factories, and assembling them on site. It's an assembly process, rather than a building process. Actually for architects and designers, I think that should be incredibly stimulating. There is a huge amount of creativity and talent out there and actually, the public laps it up.

DAVID SILLITO:
The Peabody Trust has been building low- cost homes in London for 150 years and it's just one of a number of housing associations experimenting with new methods - methods the Government is very keen to encourage. But not everyone shares this optimism.

PETER WILLIAMS:
Council for Mortgage Lenders
This has something of the smell of a bonanza about it, where people think, Ah there are opportunities here. Let's try this technique, that technique, another technique, bring it in from abroad, dream it up yourself. They aren't all fully certified, they have not been properly verified in terms of quality. We don't know their life characteristics. All of that should be properly done and we also need these builders to be there for the long term. The danger is people pile in, do a few, make whatever money they can from it, we've already had bankruptcies in this area, and then they move on. That leaves behind a building with no builder behind it, with no repair scheme behind it, but with somebody in it who will bear the consequences. We believe that's unacceptable.

DAVID SILLITO:
And it's the experiences of 40 years ago that are behind this caution. Back then, there were the same problems, and the same optimism.

ARCHIVE FOOTAGE:
With industrialised production, we'll bring quicker housing.

DAVID SILLITO:
But optimism crumbled when Ronan Point crumbled. When a gas explosion did this to the east London tower block in 1968, prefabrication didn't seem quite such a good idea.

JON ROUSE:
Commission for Architecture
I was born a year after Ronan Point collapsed. I think there is a whole generation of us now who are very sorry obviously genuinely for what happened in the 1960's and we have to live with that legacy. By the same token we can't stand still. We are European, the rest of Europe is building high quality, designed-for- manufacture dwellings, that meet people's needs. We can't keep harking back to the past and say, "Just because we got it wrong 40 years ago, we shouldn't actually attempt it again now."

DAVID SILLITO:
Prefabrication though has had some extraordinary successes. Take this estate in Catford in south-east London.

JOHN TAYLOR:
Catford resident
Thats when it first started - German prisoners of war, under English supervision.

DAVID SILLITO:
John Taylor moved into his prefab in 1947. It was made in Canada and assembled by German prisoners of war. And these were houses that were supposed to be up for ten years?

JOHN TAYLOR:
Yeah, Life span, 10 years. Well we have been here 47, 50-plus. Nearly as old as me. What a joke.

DAVID SILLITO:
And, he's not the only original resident. This estate is popular. They've even had a new prefab installed a few weeks ago. It's a sign that attitudes are changing.

PHILIP STORY:
Catford resident
Actually they called it Cardboard City. That was the nickname they gave it. Anyway, apart from all that...

DAVID SILLITO:
Cardboard City?

PHILIP STORY:
Yes, just like cardboard. That was the nickname they gave it. Not now they don't, they call them now, bungalows.

DAVID SILLITO:
It wasn't just Catford. Greg Stevenson has written a history of the prefab. 150,000 were built. They were extraordinarily popular and then, well, they went back to traditional housing construction.

DOCTOR GREG STEVENSON:
Prefab historian
Well they stopped building the temporary housing programme prefabs in 1949. They simply proved too expensive. It cost them more to erect them than it did to build standard housing.

DAVID SILLITO:
Today's prefabs are no different. Manufacturing costs are between 7 and 20% higher. Environ suddenly has accepted that the environmental standards and easier construction come at a cost, but other developers are experimenting, trying new cheaper methods, and this is what is worrying both a Parliamentary Select Committee and the mortgage lenders.

PETER WILLIAMS:
We are already aware of some schemes where there appear to be water penetration problems. We are certainly aware of schemes that have been built where they have no known way of repairing them in the light of damage. These are just the problems that have emerged so far from basically an industry that's not keen to tell you about the problems.

DAVID SILLITO:
And getting it wrong is a problem that can blight areas for decades. This is one of the so-called "boot estates", an experiment that didn't work out quite so well. The Government's architectural advisors know there is a risk in trying to encourage the housing industry to try to experiment again.

JON ROUSE:
I think the big risk for us, for all of us who are involved in this, is we could get one or two schemes that go badly wrong, because people try to extend these methods too far, try to be too clever. There is always a danger that will taint everything we are trying to do, when in fact the majority of schemes work fantastically well and people enjoy living in them.

DAVID SILLITO:
So there's no reason why prefabs then can't be popular, or indeed high quality, but many in the building industry are very sceptical that it is a high speed, low-cost answer to our housing shortage.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.