Seven Oaks Timber Frame, part of Neath-based construction company JG Hale Construction, is to be turned into a separate limited company and rebranded as Seven Oaks Modular in a move that reflects its rapid growth and the increasing demand for modular construction solutions in the UK.
The new company will be managed by Charlotte Hale, with Jonathan Hale – chairman of JG Hale Construction – also becoming chairman of Seven Oaks Modular. The brands Hale Construction and Hale Homes will remain within the parent company JG Hale Construction.
Seven Oaks has an order book in excess of £10.5 million all with tier one contractors and large property developers. It anticipates year-on-year growth of more than 15 per cent.
The growth is partly being driven by government initiatives to build more homes quickly. The UK Government set a target of building 300,000 new homes in 2017 and the Welsh Government aims to build 20,000 new affordable homes by 2021.
Modular construction cuts time on site to around half – and it means that although components and materials are more expensive than traditional ones, cost comparisons conducted by Seven Oaks revealed that the overall cost is the same, if not cheaper than traditional building techniques because of the increased development speed. Modular housing also incorporates greater quality and precision from the factory installed components and materials. This greener-quality housing matches customer expectations, end user and market requirements.
Seven Oaks Modular is extending its product offering to incorporate windows, doors and external cladding into its prefabricated timber frame panels, with a view to offering fully modular volumetric buildings in the future. It has also invested in research into developing bathroom and kitchen pods, CLT and other modular renewable products and solutions. While continuing success with its Trisowarm insulated panel is expected to grow. The benefits of the Trisowarm system are many, including better energy efficiency and structural strength, being 5 times as strong as traditional timberframe.
Following the rebrand, the company will also invest £2 million in expanding its production facilities and increasing the size of its workforce. It has plans to move into new premises increasing the company’s capacity threefold – from producing 1,000 homes per year to 3,000 per year. Details of this move will be unveiled later this year.
Charlotte Hale, manager of Seven Oaks Modular, said:
“We’ve listened to our customers and with an evidently increased demand for offsite manufacturing, we’ve decided to introduce a more modular approach to our product offerings. There is a big housing shortage in the UK and this approach has the potential to help solve that in a quicker and more efficient way.“We already have a very healthy order book but our core client base is ever expanding and we aim to provide the best possible quality renewable and current modular solutions in the UK. We also have big plans on investment that will see us take on new premises and create many new jobs in the heart of Neath.”
