IKEA, the Swedish flatpack furniture chain, is set to bring its all-in-one Scandinavian kit-homes to Edinburgh, with prices below £100,000.
Alan Prole, the managing director of Live Smart @ Home, the British company licensed to promote the development, revealed yesterday that a site had been earmarked near the Royal Infirmary. Negotiations are already advanced for sites at Drumchapel in
Glasgow and at Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
The timber-framed BoKlok houses, pioneered across Sweden in the mid-1990s, come with a host of the store's signature features, including wooden flooring and fitted kitchens - plus an IKEA furniture voucher.
However, there is no self-assembly involved - most construction is done off-site by professionals before the homes are transported to building plots.
IKEA plans to build 500 homes a year, with a flat costing less than £100,000 and a three-bedroom house selling for about £150,000.
The designs are seen as an answer to the UK's lack of affordable housing and aimed at those with annual incomes of £30,000 or less.
Mr Prole said: "We are looking at the south-east wedge of Edinburgh near the new hospital. The staff at the hospital would be an ideal target market for us, with modest earnings. It could be a real boost to the area and help in the retention of staff."
Prices for a conventional one-bedroom flat in the city start at around £115,000 and a three-bedroom semi-detached in the suburbs would start from about £220,000.
Pre-fabricated homes have not been a big success in the UK housing market, where traditional brick homes prevail.
But with property prices soaring, Live Smart @ Home believes it can exploit a gap for affordable homes by creating mini-communities.
Mr Prole said: "These homes will be like nothing seen before in the UK and will play an important role in helping first-time buyers who have been unable to get on the property ladder."
Demand is expected to be so high that the companies involved might have to chose applicants by lottery, Mr Prole said.
Trevor Davis, the convener of the city's planning committee, said innovative housing was welcomed, providing standards were met. "We are particularly keen to ensure sustainable forms of housing are developed, and we would wish to see a wide range and mix of housing throughout Edinburgh."
But James Whitson, the director of private sales at Rettie & Co in Edinburgh, was not enthusiastic. "I always love an innovative idea, but when you really examine the procedures people have to go through to build homes, I would be surprised if they would get planning permission," he said.
"I acknowledge there is such a scarcity of housing for first-time buyers. I also know that there are a lot of people who want to build their own homes, and while on paper it may seem the ideal solution, the problem may actually be getting the land to build on."
BoKloks can be tweaked for British tastes and have three cladding options and a balcony as an extra cost.
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Scotland, timber and copper-clad pods glazed for solar gain have been built in Hamilton.
In Spain, cave homes are environment-friendly, cool in summer and warm in winter.
In New Zealand, steel shipping containers are the latest "portable" homes - cheap and easily transported.
Old rail carriages have made homes in the UK for a century.
The full article contains 608 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
