what are prefabricated homes like and will they ever take off in Britain?
Later today, five lorries from Poland will arrive in south London with a curious cargo. Several huge crates will be lifted by crane on to a site in Camberwell. These “pods” – ready made apartments built in a factory in Krakow – represent the latest attempt to solve the UK’s housing crisis. By the end of next month, they will be home to key public sector workers. When complete, the £1.45m Wyndham Road scheme will provide 18 homes. Six flats are already in place, delivered from Krakow’s Buma factory earlier this month, and bolted together into a three-storey block by Buma’s own workers, who have been (temporarily) imported from Poland for the task. The government has high hopes for prefab housing, and the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, will formally open the Wyndham scheme. Pods, he believes, will deliver thousands of new homes in the south-east of England, though it is unclear whether the British public will be as enthusiastic. The Buma pods feel reassuringly solid, even though t
