Actis Hybrid products

Hybrid loving offsite homes specialist helps prisoners find jobs

A Manchester-based steel frame construction specialist is offering prisoners a chance for a new career building homes insulated with Actis Hybrid insulation.

 

  Osco Homes has been working with inmates at HMP Hindley in Wigan for some years, helping them to develop skills required for future employment through training and mentoring.

Each inmate starts his training within prison and, on completion, will be supported into full time employment. When working for Osco, their training continues with the aim of eventually having all the skills in-house to assemble and complete a home. So far this has helped reduce re-offending, delivering significant benefits to the public purse.

Until recently Osco used other forms of insulation for their homes – until operations manager Karl Ventre stumbled across a YouTube video showing how quick, clean and easy it was to install Actis’ honeycomb insulation Hybris. So he switched materials and he and the prison workforce are delighted at the change.

Indeed, so impressive and unusual is Osco’s rehabilitation programme that BBC TV even ran a story on its approach to helping prisoners make a new life after being inside.

Karl Ventre explained: “I saw the video via a LinkedIn feed and thought the Hybris panels looked a doddle. The prisoners had been complaining that the mineral wool we had been using was itchy and uncomfortable to work with. Obviously, we wanted to do something to eliminate this situation. And Hybris was absolutely the answer we’d been looking for. Not only is it not at all itchy, it’s very clean, there’s no dust, it’s incredibly quick and easy to install and very light, which is a nice contrast to our steel frames.”

Like timber frame manufacturing, much of the steel frame construction process takes place offsite before the components – insulated walls, roofs and floors - are lifted into place on site. And it is the offsite element which is carried out by prisoners alongside their factory manager who is there every day.

The construction of the first Osco Homes house to use Hybris consists of a floor, walls and roof structure insulated with 60mm Hybris which is centrally fitted within the light gauge steel substructure.

The properties are being built for housing association Together Housing which is working in partnership with Leeds City Council.

Osco Homes is, like Actis, a great believer in the benefits of offsite construction in providing not only high quality, energy efficient and attractive houses, but also a speedier way to build the homes the UK so badly needs.

Karl explained: “There is not enough housing and a shortage of skilled labour to build them using traditional methods.  By carrying on doing what has always been done, it seems unlikely that this will be changed anytime soon.

​“By building differently, we can deliver the change required alongside increasing the quality, improved sustainability, reducing time onsite and using different skill sets, bringing new people into the industry.

Construction is one of number of vocational activities available for the HMP Hindley’s category C prisoners – adults and young men who have been sentenced to four years or less. Other options are catering, multi-media, distribution and community development.

One former prisoner who now works with Osco Homes said: “Employers don’t really want to touch someone who’s been in prison. Osco are totally the opposite. They want to employ someone who’s been to prison and give them the chance of bettering their lives and their career.”

Watch Osco Homes construction in action here and watch the BBC coverage here 

 

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