Havering (Parliament Politics Magazine) – A plan is made to build 18 temporary residences on the Waterloo Estate, Havering council, but the committee head is worried about the plans’ expense.
To respond to the rapid demand for housing, the council plans to install these modular homes at a cost of £200,000 each, totaling around £3.6 million. Each unit can be moved up to five times and stacked up to three storeys, which provides flexibility in managing Housing needs throughout the district.
The initiative aims to relieve pressure on the local housing sector. This has become a significant financial burden for the council. This took over £6.1 million from the housing budget last year and is facing a budget gap of around £75m for 2025-26.
The estate is now planned for permanent construction over the next five to seven years, based on a report on the new modular housing ideas.
Why is Havering council building 18 temporary homes?
For a projected 1,380-home estate in Romford, the land off Queen Street and Waterloo Road had been cleared.
But according to a report released last week, the council now projects that construction will begin in “five to seven years’ time,” after the Waterloo Estate plan was put on hold in 2023.
In the meanwhile, it intends to build 18 modular homes on the property to ease the stress on its housing sector, which has grown to be a major financial burden.
According to the estimate, each unit will cost £200,000, for a total cost of £3.6 million. However, they can be moved up to five times. Additionally, they can be piled up to three stories high.
The town hall claims they can be completed swiftly and will be partially funded by grants, although more cost estimates have been kept private.
On January 14, the council’s overview and scrutiny committee suggested that the plan should be approved.
David Taylor, a Conservative councillor and the chair of the committee, stated that Havering will “seek best value for money” when buying the houses and that the places committee had been told they would be of “high quality.”
The single-story, rectangular dwellings would be equipped and warmed by air-source pumps.
He went on saying: “Havering has also made it clear that these will not be basic ‘container’ homes as seen elsewhere in the country, but high-quality and modern homes with garden space.
“No one wants to see families living in temporary accommodation. These units will be a big step forward in ensuring we can move families out of [bed-and-breakfast style temporary accommodation] and into warm, dry homes.”
How will the Havering council overcome housing crises with modular homes?
Osman Dervish, a fellow Conservative councillor, stated that the council’s ability to relocate the houses was crucial because they would “probably” be required elsewhere.
The first relocation will probably be permanent, according to Mark Butler, assistant director of regeneration and place, even though the guarantee covers five relocations.
It is said that one of the largest expenses for the Havering Residents Association-run council, which is already struggling financially, is temporary housing.
The town hall is currently facing a startling £75 million budget gap for 2025–2026 after spending £6.1 million more than it had allocated on accommodations last year.
According to Butler, the council will also keep buying typical properties in the borough to increase the number of available housing units.
A different plan to turn Romford’s Chesham House into accommodation for 55 homeless or at-risk families received approval last month. Council members, however, expressed concern that it might be “substandard.”
Earlier this month, the leadership of Havering Council formally adopted the modular home plan.
According to the municipal hall, they will be accessible by the autumn.
What did the council meeting reveal about the modular home plan?
On November 28, Councillor. Taylor led the place monitoring and scrutiny subcommittee meeting to debate the plan, which aims to lessen the requirement for the council to pay for short-term hotel accommodations.
“The principle is not something I am against”, said Cllr Taylor.
“We have an urgent need to house people in the borough. If that land is going to be left as rubble for five to seven years then I am certainly not adverse to putting it to good use.”
Cllr Taylor told this paper, though, that he is “deeply concerned at the cost of this”.
According to information presented at the meeting, each modular home would cost £200,000 to build, with additional funding required for infrastructure.
“The council already has a programme for purchasing homes on the open market,”
Cllr Taylor said.
“We were trying to gain an understanding of why you couldn’t just buy 18 more homes.
“So before we say whether this is a good or bad idea, we need to understand why we are spending more than the price of a family home to buy someone a temporary modular unit.”
When Cllr. Taylor questioned Mark Butler, assistant director of place shape and regeneration, he responded as follows: “These (18 temporary homes) are supplementary to rather than instead of (homes on the open market). We are pursuing both of those avenues.
“This offers an opportunity also to use an underutilised site for that period and bring forward some housing provision.”
According to the council report, there will be four three-bedroom family homes and fourteen two-bedroom homes in the planned construction.
Cllr Taylor said: “We have got a lot of new two-bed flats being built on the market and I can tell you the total costs of these units is significantly more than the costs of these flats.”
One of these planned units will cost £361,000, which “is not that much to buy properties in Havering these days,” according to Living Well director Patrick Odling-Smee.
The meeting ended quickly because the town hall was about to close, leaving Cllr Taylor and the committee with unanswered issues.
“Unfortunately, our scrutiny meeting was cut short which was frustrating. We were turfed out of the town hall at 9pm,” he explained.
“This meant we were not allowed to properly scrutinise this decision.”
How is Havering council addressing the needs for housing from 2024?
Havering Council has announced plans to build 18 temporary homes on land earmarked for a new housing project. This is part of a response to continued delays in housing development projects.
The construction of these temporary homes is a necessary measure to meet the immediate housing need. Meanwhile, long-term housing projects remain on hold.
In 2024, around 1,000 households were living in temporary accommodation in Havering, reflecting the significant need for more stable housing options
Application numbers for homeless people in the borough have increased by almost 15% in the past year. This trend underscores the urgency to provide additional permanent housing solutions.
The decision to build the temporary homes is part of Havering Council’s wider strategy to meet the urgent needs of residents. At the same time, they are working to find long-term solutions for affordable housing.