Shelforce has played a part in a housing first for Birmingham, manufacturing all the aluminium windows for the City Council’s new ‘ModPod’ home in Hockley.
Just Solutions manufactured the modular home, recognising the national need for affordable housing as well as the need to utilise brownfield sites. Birmingham City Council’s housing arm Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust (BMHT) chose to partner with Just Solutions to deliver their first ‘ModPod’. As Shelforce, based in Erdington, is the Council’s chosen window and door manufacturer and supplier of choice, having worked on a huge number of their local authority projects in the past, they were ideal partner on the project.
“The new ‘ModPod’ looks great and for Shelforce to be playing a part in such a worthwhile project for the city is brilliant,” commented Howard Trotter, Shelforce’s Business Manager. “Shelforce has always been about making a real difference for our communities and these modular homes will hopefully meet the housing demand in Birmingham.”
The ‘ModPod’ comes in two units — the ground floor and first floor — both of which are essentially steel frames with the necessary insulated walls and customisable façades. It features a 4mm thick Acrylic brick finish on the bottom and a corrugated aluminium exterior on the top.
Sleeping up to four people, it has everything expected of a modern home, including an upstairs and downstairs bathroom, while the master bedroom boasts a balcony. The unit took an hour to crane into place on a pre-prepared site and was available for tenants to occupy on the same day.
It took around 20 weeks to build, however on a live production line Just Solutions have said this could be shortened to just two weeks.
BMHT already have council approval to build a further 54 units across six sites over the next 12 months, subject to planning consent, and aim to deliver that in two years before conducting a review of the modular homes programme.
Howard added: “If this pioneering programme is a success then it will not only be great for our city but also for Shelforce.”
