Oxley Woods scheme

Some of the “£60,000 homes” built under the Labour government’s drive to solve the housing crisis are rotting just seven years after their construction, it has emerged.

A futuristic development of prefabricated houses in Milton Keynes – known locally as “Lego Land” – is suffering from a catalogue of problems, including detached panels, double-glazing failures and water leakage that has caused rot to occur within the timber frames, according to a report seen by the Financial Times and detailed in this week’s Architects Journal.

The scheme was the product of a challenge laid down to the construction industry in 2005 by Labour peer Lord Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, to design houses that cost less than £60,000 to build. This was made possible by using prefabricated components that could be cheaply assembled off-site.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Lord Prescott said the claims were “absolutely bloody rubbish”.

“How can it be rotting, it’s plastic stuff isn’t it? I visited the place myself a few months ago . . . I went there and asked them [the residents] . . . they liked it.”

But 16 residents on the 122-home Oxley Woods scheme – which was designed by Richard Rogers’ architectural practice and built in 2007 by Taylor Wimpey – have now lodged formal claims with the National House Building Council, which approved the homes and insures the site....Continue Reading

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