§ Mr. Hamlingasked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the minimum proportion of factory-made components in each completed housing unit required for a system to be regarded as industrialised.
§ Mr. BoydenThe term "industralised" as applied to building indicates an advanced degree of organisation of the building process as well as the adoption of new devices and techniques. There is consequently no minimum proportion of factory-made components.
§ Mr. Hamlingasked the Minister of Public Building and Works what facilities already exist in England and Wales for building by industralised methods in terms of the annual capacity for completed housing units, the number of factories used, 431W and the number of firms involved, respectively.
§ Mr. BoydenI regret that information is not available in this form.
Some firms offer more than one system. There are at present known to the National Building Agency about 120 "systems" for low-rise housing and 40 for high-rise. It is not known how many of these will get to the stage of full production. Not all these systems involve the use of their own specialised factories, but some involve the use of several. Most systems incorporate components produced by a variety of factories whose numbers it would be difficult to assess. The total capacity of existing systems has been very conservatively estimated by the National Building Agency at not less than 100,000 units per year.