Proctor Group Supplies Membrane Products to Social Bite Villages

Scottish suppliers across the construction industry, including the Proctor Group, have provided support to a homelessness charity in creating new supported village communities.

Social Bite, a social business as well as a charity, empowers people to transform their own lives. Since 2012, its varied work has seen it move into developing the Social Bite Village – a model which, by the end of 2025, will be replicated across three different sites.

Modular construction specialists Ecosystems Technologies was engaged by Social Bite to manufacture the living units for the sites. As part of the design and specification process, the Proctor Group provided membrane products and accessories free of charge, to help deliver quality living spaces that make a real difference to people benefitting from Social Bite’s work.

Collaboration Key to Creating New Living Units

Social Bite opened the Social Bite Village in Edinburgh in 2018. The site is a highly supported community for 20 people and, in that time, it has served as a transformative, transitory space for 100 people experiencing homelessness.

With the lease on the current site coming to an end, Social Bite has worked with the local council to find a new site in the city. This will involve the relocation of the eleven current two-bedroom living units, plus the addition of five new one-bedroom Nest homes and a community building (comprised of six modules).

Two further brand-new sites, in South Lanarkshire and Dundee, are also in development.

“Creating the new one-bedroom unit was a very collaborative process,” said Richard Miller, Project Manager at Social Bite. “Ecosystems Technologies put forward concepts for the buildings. We received their technical steer and used our own architects and engineers to make sure that relevant regulations were met.”

“We produced a prototype Nest house in 2023,” said Owen Young, Production Director at Ecosystems Technologies. “That really helped people to see what was involved and the quality of the units, and helped to secure additional charitable backing.”

Creating a Quality Product Using Offsite Modular Construction

The housing units that Ecosystems Technologies have created for Social Bite exemplify a pioneering approach to modular construction, not just in Scotland but the whole of the UK. Working with their partners, the company uses a vacuum press to form cross laminated timber (CLT) panels for all its modular products.

The modules therefore offer all the typical benefits of offsite manufacture: consistent quality, protection from the weather, minimal finishing, faster project timescales on site, and a high standard of building fabric performance. “The energy performance of our buildings is unmatched,” said Owen Young.