They are all still prefabulous

The prefab - the factory mass-produced home conceived as a quick fix for the post-war housing crisis - is making a come-back.

Housing associations, keen to provide homes quickly and cheaply, are turning to the prefab to cope with a growing housing crisis in Britain. Instead of the traditional British home, which takes more than a year to assemble, the prefab can be ready in days. It is made of steel or plastic parts on a factory production line which then, jigsaw-like, are slotted together on site.

The associations have taken over much of the role of town halls in supplying affordable homes for rent, and are under pressure to provide many of the extra four million homes which the Environment Secretary, John Gummer says are needed here in the next 20 years.

Indeed, one of the oldest housing associations, the Peabody Trust, is negotiating now with the London borough of Hackney to build steel prefab homes within its boundaries.

The prefabs mass-produced in Britain in the wake of the Second World War were cheap, serviceable and extremely popular with their tenants. Some 125,000 were built to three basic designs, and some have survived to be listed as buildings of architectural and historic interest.

Some prefabs were made from scrapped Second World War aircraft and tended to be cold in winter and hot in summer, but the latest prefabs have been heavily soundproofed and insulated. The modern prefab can also be produced complete with carpeting and fitted furniture. One builder, Yorkon, first developed factory-made bedrooms for hotels, and has since had inquiries from several housing associations about adapting the system for housing. "It is dramatically quicker than conventional building," said Yorkon's technical director Steve Sterick.

The interest in prefab homes is a direct result of the upturn in housebuilding. During the property slump of the last five years, housing associations worked with housebuilders, keen to sell them "package deals" of homes when they were unable to shift houses to private buyers.

Now the builders can sell their properties and the associations are left out in the cold. Land is rising in price too, making the cost of new housing increasingly expensive, but the associations' government grants have been cut by 12 per cent.

While housing associations may be enthusiastic about prefabs, householders may take some persuading. Ken Bartlett, who is carrying out research on housing of the future for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said: "People want the latest model of car but a 1750 house."

But elsewhere, production-line homes are popular. In Holland, up to 90,000 homes a year are built using ready-made parts at high speed, while in the US, nearly one in three family homes sold are factory-made. Their speedy delivery has led to them being dubbed "McHouses".