The sky's the limit for rooftop homes in London

As available building space in our capital is so restricted, developers are now turning to the skies with a novel idea for increasing the number of new homes being built in London.

Homes England (a new Government agency which aims to deliver more commercially viable building sites) has invested in a plan to construct 78 rooftop dwellings in five different locations in London.

But rather than sending teams from all the construction trades onto the roofs of existing buildings, these prefabricated homes are going to be built off site, then craned into their final position. This technique should significantly speed up build times, and be far less intrusive to existing residents. Current timescales suggest more than thirty of these homes will be ready for sale before the end of summer.

It’s hoped this three year plan could lead the way by encouraging other inner-city developers into moving away from traditional building techniques in favour of alternative ideas to help us meet current housing targets.

But by adding less than 100 new homes to our UK target of 250,000, we’re going to need a lot of builders to follow this approach.

News of this project was announced alongside a bigger plan to invest nearly £500 million into building 11,000 affordable housing across England, using more conventional techniques.

The money will be granted to housing associations in areas where cheaper homes are needed the most.

Last year, more than 190,000 new homes were completed. This is highest total for a decade, but still short of the Government’s 250,000 target. They want us to be building even more new dwellings (300,000 a year) over the coming decade.