Bexhill Road,Hastings.

Hastings Borough Council needed new permanent homes for households on its register, on a council-owned site at Bexhill Road, and needed them without the programme risk that comes with a traditional build. SEMCO was contracted to design, manufacture and deliver the scheme as a single package: 16 homes, built as 32 modules at Newhaven and installed on site in two weeks.

The homes are built to EPC A, BOPAS-accredited for warranty and lending, and designed to the council’s own housing standard. The contract was signed in March 2026.

The council was carrying the cost of temporary accommodation for households it could not yet house, on a site it already owned. Every month of construction programme was a month of that cost, and a month of households waiting.

A conventional build would have meant many months on site with a full trades workforce. The council needed certainty on date and cost before it could commit the capital.

Design for manufacture came first. The homes were coordinated in BIM against the council’s standard and the site constraints before manufacture began, so there were no site-stage redesigns.

Manufacture ran at Newhaven in parallel with groundworks and services on site. While the slab was going in at Bexhill Road, modules were moving down the line with kitchens, bathrooms, electrics and finishes fitted indoors. Each module was loaded onto transport using our own tower lifts — no crane hire at the factory end.

The 32 modules were craned into position over a two-week installation programme, connected and commissioned, and handed over to the council ready to let.

Permanent homes for households that were in temporary accommodation. A programme that held. A council that owns an energy-efficient asset rather than paying a nightly rate, and a scheme it can show to any other authority asking whether factory-built housing works in practice.

Commercial management on the project was provided by Adeo Global Consulting.