STEWART Milne Timber Systems has announced its involvement in a “stretching” housebuilding project to relocate some 4,000 service personnel and their families from Germany to Salisbury Plain in South Wiltshire.
The initiative forms part of a £250 million contract awarded to regeneration specialist Lovell, part of the Morgan Sindall Group, by the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The project will see 917 homes built at three sites: Ludgershall, Larkhill and Bulford.
The scheme is part of the MOD’s Army Basing Programme (ABP) and each site will include six different house types, comprising three or four bedrooms.
Stewart Milne will deliver 467 of the homes across the Ludgershall and Larkhil sites. The firm revealed it was selected following a two-stage tender process, with “key” requirements including a fast build time, high levels of energy efficiency, scope for adaptability, and cost efficiency.
Mike Perry, sales director at Stewart Milne Timber Systems said, “This is an exciting housebuilding project for Salisbury Plain, and we’re very proud to be associated with it. We have a proven method for manufacturing high-quality, value-engineered products, consistently on time, and will apply this to meet Lovell’s target of 20 completed homes per week.
“Typical industry pace is delivery of one-to-two homes per week, so it’s a stretching target, but from the outset of this project, we have all committed to working openly and collaboratively to ensure the successful completion of this scheme. We believe that this project will be an exemplar for the industry. It will demonstrate what can be achieved with an offsite manufactured timber frame solution and a collaborative working relationship with all partners.”
Lovell’s major projects director John Leary added, “Intelligent selection in supply chain assembly is essential in a project of this magnitude. This stands across the trades but is clearly crucial on key packages such as timber frame. The speed of build on the SFA scheme means that timber frame and thus an element of offsite manufacture was a given but the choice of provider is the challenging piece.
“After an extensive selection process considering the country’s leading providers, we elected to partner with Stewart Milne Timber Systems. We have worked successfully with Stewart Milne in the past and have only a positive history. Importantly we have been entirely comfortable working together in a very open and transparent manner, developing design solutions and fashioning the technical and commercial package over a series of months.”
Construction is now underway at the Ludgershall site, with work due to start at Larkhill later this summer.
