Raj Shah, PhD, FHEA; Leigh O’Mahony, PhD student; Wilfred Matipa, PhD, FHEA; and Prof. Alison Cotgrave, PhD, SFHEA
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool, England, UK
The UK has been in a housing crisis for many years and it has missed its house building targets by over 1.3 million houses since 2004. Something needs to change to achieve government target. Prefabricated homes could be a solution to this issue since they could bring overall construction duration down, keep the costs lower and provide higher quality homes as they are produced in a controlled factory environment rather than on site and open to other elements. However, many controlling factors such as higher initial investment, incomplete industry supply chain and public perception have had a major impact on their limited usage up to this point. The aim of this paper is to examine the public perception regarding the prefabricated housing in the UK using a mixed research methodology with the questionnaire survey. There has been limited research in this area and the majority of research has focused on the technology involved and the sustainability impact of prefabricated housing. The survey results reveal that the UK public can struggle to accept a prefabricated house due to the lack of information regarding prefabricated housing. A common belief is that the UK government needs to support this type of housing with a financing package to encourage them to buy the prefabrication houses and builders need to inject more houses in market.
Key Words: Prefabricated, Perception, Public, Housing, UK, Delivery, Quality, Economical