Stewart Milne Group has reported doubling its timber systems business in the last four years and is predicting robust growth for the division in 2018.
As the largest provider of timber off-site construction solutions in the UK, with a turnover of £65 million, Stewart Milne Timber Systems is on-track to achieve its five-year plan of reaching £100m by 2021.
The growth is attributable to extensive contracts with major private housebuilders and providing timber frame homes to local authorities and housing associations across the UK. This rising demand for timber systems is as a result of these offsite timber solutions becoming a major contributor in addressing the ongoing UK’s housing shortage.
Alex Goodfellow, group managing director of Stewart Milne Timber Systems, said: “Increasingly the Government and local authorities are looking to off-site construction to accelerate the building of high quality, affordable new homes.
“Engineered timber homes are not only manufactured from the world’s most environmentally friendly construction material but also significantly reduce build times on site, improve standards of build quality and reduce health and safety risks during construction.
“There’s growing acknowledgement of the many benefits of timber systems, and we have a proven track record across a number of sectors. New digital technologies like BIM (building information modelling) are the next frontier, which is why we’ve invested in developing the first-ever online BIM library in our sector, allowing architects and clients to specify projects within real-world parameters. We’re in an excellent position to grow our market share over the next year.”
The offsite manufacturing business now employs 300 people in its two factories in Westhill, Aberdeen and Witney, Oxfordshire and is producing timber systems for 7,000 homes in the UK annually.
Around 90% of all new homes in Scotland are built using offsite timber solutions. One in four of those (16,000) was built with timber systems manufactured by the Stewart Milne Timber Systems’ factory in Westhill.
Mr Goodfellow added: “We’ve invested heavily in precision manufacturing capabilities in our UK factories and created the capacity to increase the output of both sites.
“We’re at a unique time in the British construction sector where shortages of skills and new homes are converging with a requirement to build thousands of new homes to higher quality and environmental standards than ever. Our business is very well-positioned to provide solutions to all of these challenges and we’ll continue to drive innovation through our design expertise, manufacturing capability and product development in 2018 and beyond.”
Stewart Milne Timber Systems is a division of Stewart Milne Group. The five star housebuilder and offsite timber systems manufacturer employs over 800 people in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Witney.