Amphion's provider goes into receivership and wall-panel maker abandons market
The government's great hope for boosting housing supply has been dealt a body blow: two key off-site manufacturers have left the industry.

Torwood – which supplied the Amphion consortium of housing associations – has gone into receivership and manufacturer Marshalls is to cease production of its cement wall-panel system, Panablok. Other areas of its business are unaffected.

Torwood supplied Amphion with the Tee-U-Tech timber frame system which has proved less popular than anticipated with builders.

Amphion, which was founded in 1999 to provide factory-built housing, had 150 homes at the design stage and 70 on site or awaiting delivery when Torwood went into receivership. Work on these homes will be delayed for a few months as the consortium looks for another supplier. It is in talks with Stewart Milne, Westbury and other manufacturers.

But Chris Blundell, development and regeneration director for housing association Amicus Group, an Amphion member, stressed the consortium would continue its work.

Amphion retains the intellectual property rights to Tee-U-Tech, and will share the technology with other housing associations.

Torwood's Suffolk factory, where Tee-U-Tech was made, is to be closed. Receiver Tenon Recovery is selling the company's other factory in Livingston, Scotland, as a going concern.

Tom MacLennan, joint receiver working for Tenon, said the Suffolk factory had been "a massive drain on a profitable operation".

Marshalls was unavailable for comment as Housing Today went to press.

The reduction in OSM capacity and expertise is a significant setback to deputy prime minister John Prescott's plans to bring about a "step change" in housing supply by encouraging the use of factory-built homes.

But there is still hope. Steelmaker Corus has announced that it is to spend £4m to set up an off-site manufacturing facility that will target the affordable housing market.

Based at the troubled company's factory in Shotton, Cheshire, it aims to have a capacity of 3000 units by the end of this year.

And, as the results of a Housing Today poll show (page 26), Prescott's enthusiasm for OSM has rubbed off on housing associations.

Of the top 50 developing associations, 22 replied to the survey and all said they were undertaking some form of OSM development.

Source

Housing Today