A YORK manufacturer looks set for a mammoth jobs and profits boom after a Government minister said its modular homes could help solve Britain's housing crisis.

Yorkon, which makes homes piece-by-piece at its Huntington factory, then rapidly assembles them into award-winning structures on site, could ease the plight of nurses, teachers and police officers priced out of their jobs by the steep cost of housing.

That is the vision of housing minister Lord Falconer, who foresees the Government releasing publicly-owned land free to build thousands of modular designs as affordable homes for public service workers.

Yorkon, a subsidiary of Portakabin, is the only firm in Britain making social housing in this way so the decision would mean a huge upsurge in production and jobs both at Huntington and within its supply chain.

Yorkon has already proved that it can erect consistently well-built homes in half the time it takes using the traditional "brick and block" methods.

Already the firm has won a 2002 Civic Trust Award, among nine similar awards, for its prefabricated five-storey apartment block commissioned by the Peabody Trust housing association in Hackney, London.

Its "production not construction" breakthrough was also evident in the £2 million four-storey apartment block craned into place in Sixth Avenue, York, last year - a development backed by the Yorkshire Housing Group in partnership with the City of York Council.

Keith Blanshard, director and general manager of Yorkon, said that his firm was singled out by the Minister as an example of how it should be done because of these awards and should the intention translate to orders, there would be a boom in jobs and production.

"We believe that we have started something with the Peabody Trust and we want to export that to other housing associations and private developers. It will make a significant difference to the overall cost if the land offered is virtually free."

But he warned that the lengthy process to gain planning consent - more than a year in the south of England - could create problems. "Alongside this new thinking must be some way of streamlining the planning process," Mr Blanshard said.

Updated: 11:50 Wednesday, May 08, 2002