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Design
You choose the mix of homes from our range of types and specifications. We take it through feasibility and planning with your officers.
A meanwhile-use housing solution for councils carrying temporary accommodation cost. Factory-built homes to full residential standards, on land you already control, funded by SEMCO and leased back for less than you are paying the private rented sector today.
To replace high-cost, low-quality temporary accommodation with secure, well-built homes — delivered in months, at less cost to the council, and run alongside the permanent housing it still needs to build.
We have worked with industry-leading partners Fuse Architects and Eastbourne Borough Council to develop a solution to meanwhile housing and homelessness.
Councils rely on the private rented sector to house households in temporary accommodation. It is high cost, low quality and offers little security of tenure. Shelter projects that by the end of this Parliament 182,000 households and 206,000 children could be in temporary accommodation, costing councils £3.9bn a year. A large housing site takes four to five years from first planning application to first completion. Something has to work in the meantime.
135,580 households in temporary accommodation in England on 31 March 2026. A record, and 3.6% up on a year earlier.
English councils spent £2.93bn on temporary accommodation in 2025/26, up 88% in five years. London boroughs alone spend £5m a day.
177,530 children on 31 March 2026, 5.2% up on the year and the highest since records began. In London, one child in every 21.
A third of households in temporary accommodation are lone mothers with children, and 60% of the adults living in it are women.
A short-term solution has to do four things: deliver homes quickly, to a high standard, at less cost than the private rented sector, and with security for the people living in them. It does not replace the need for permanent social housing. It replaces the temporary accommodation being used while that housing is built. This is how it works.
On a peppercorn rent, leased to SEMCO for a minimum of ten years and one day. Stalled or future development sites, estate infill, disused garage courts, later phases of large schemes. There is no practical minimum or maximum site size.
All development capital, including infrastructure, is covered by SEMCO. There is zero capital cost to the council. The completed homes are leased back for a minimum of ten years and one day, at a monthly cost per bed-space below the local private rented rate — and below what is being paid for temporary accommodation now.
Working with the council’s housing officers, we run the full planning application. The consent sought is permanent, full planning permission for C3 residential use — not a temporary permission.
One, two, three and four-bed apartments, up to three storeys, in a choice of external finishes. Each module leaves the factory fully finished and is installed, connected and ready to occupy in days. A prototype is built at the factory and can be visited.
Building management and planned and responsive repairs and maintenance are covered by SEMCO. The council manages the tenants and their leases, or brings a Registered Provider into the structure to act as landlord and, if preferred, take on repairs too.
When the homes are no longer needed, the council can extend the lease, purchase the buildings, or SEMCO removes them. The homes are fully demountable and re-usable, and the site is handed back with its hard landscaping.
The homes are built to the same certified system as our permanent housing, inspected before they leave Newhaven, and warrantied. They meet current regulation and legislation for:
Better than the vast majority of private rented accommodation currently used for temporary housing.
To the council. SEMCO funds the development, infrastructure included.
Income certainty over ten years, not six- or twelve-month tenancies, is what brings the monthly cost down. The term is set so the homes can sit outside the Housing Revenue Account.
The modules are demountable and re-usable, so the capital is spread over thirty years. The council pays for ten years’ use.
Below the local private rented rate, and below current temporary accommodation spend. Council capital or a longer lease lowers it further.
You choose the mix of homes from our range of types and specifications. We take it through feasibility and planning with your officers.
Factory-controlled production in Newhaven. Every home to the same tolerance, delivered fully finished.
Groundworks and services run while the homes are built. Installed in days, connected, commissioned and occupied.
SEMCO manages the buildings and carries out planned and responsive repairs for the life of the lease. The council deals with one party.
Book a factory visit
Yes. Any capital the council puts in reduces the monthly lease cost.
Each project, and its monthly lease cost, is site specific. The most variable element is the infrastructure: incoming services, foundations, ground conditions, any demolition and groundworks. We can show the average cost for a typical site with no abnormals, but every site will differ.
Two reasons. The lease runs over ten years rather than a six- or twelve-month tenancy, and that income certainty lets us bring the monthly cost down. And because the modules are demountable and re-usable, the capital cost is spread over thirty years while the council only pays for ten years’ use.
Yes. We generally work to ten years and one day, which is set so the homes can fall outside the Housing Revenue Account and open up a higher level of cost recovery when they are used as temporary accommodation. A longer term spreads the capital further and lowers the monthly cost.
You can. There is an exit cost, agreed during contract negotiation.
No. SEMCO is not a Registered Provider. The structure can include a local Registered Provider as landlord to manage the tenants on the council’s behalf, and to take on repairs and maintenance if preferred.
Yes. All of our homes are warrantied.
You choose the mix of homes from our range of types and specifications to suit your need. It is a product, not a bespoke design, which affects how the arrangement is procured. We will go through that with your procurement team at the outset.
The range is apartments: one to four beds, up to three storeys, in a choice of external finishes.
We can provide a full package: source the land, arrange the lease and develop the homes. The monthly cost increases, because the land is unlikely to be at a peppercorn. Other public-sector land in your area — MOD, Ministry of Justice, NHS — can also be looked at.
We can provide a compact range below the Nationally Described Space Standard, which reduces the cost per bedroom. Not meeting NDSS increases planning risk, so we would test that approach with your planning colleagues at the feasibility stage.
SEMCO is an approved supplier on the Everything Estates framework, so local authorities can appoint us by direct award without a full tender. The standard structure is a land lease to SEMCO and a lease of the completed homes back to the council. Capital purchase, part-funding and longer terms are all available where they suit the authority better.
We’ll tell you whether the numbers work, and how quickly. Then walk through the prototype at the factory in Newhaven. Visits take an hour.