The company that supplied 500 holiday lodges for the €233m Center Parcs resort says it has capacity to deliver three times as many rapid-build homes across Ireland next year.

FastHouse builds pre-fabricated permanent buildings at a factory, ready for erection on site. It is part of Kevin Lagan's group of companies and has just completed a deal to build nearly 500 lodges at Ireland's first Center Parcs in nine months.

The firm, based in Limavady, Co Derry, builds to order. At Center Parcs, lodges were installed at a rate of three per day, and are a mix of 10 different types of homes, ranging in size from 865 sq ft to 2,045 sq ft - the equivalent of two-bed to four-bedroom homes. Sisk is the main contractor on site.

FastHouse's Sean Fox said the rapid-build model can be rolled out more generally in the housing market, currently squeezed by dangerous undersupply of new homes.

"Rapid-build, which involves bespoke precision work in the factory and less time and cost on site, can make a huge contribution to the needs of the residential market," he said.

New investment in the Limavady factory, understood to be around €20m, means FastHouse will be in position to deliver 1,500 units annually with significantly lower costs and reduced construction time, the company added.

Center Parcs is due to open next summer, and it is FastHouse's largest project to date.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has said so-called rapid-delivery housing - factory built and assembled on site - would be a central plank of his plans to deliver 47,000 social housing homes over five years, but progress has been slow to date.

Irish Independent