We can look at housing not as the problem, but as the solution

FOR most of us, our housing costs are a major chunk of our expenditure. Prices for those who want to buy are very high and mortgage payments are high.

Rents only ever seem to go up. And we face a cost-of-living crisis and that’s no fun.

Maybe we can look at housing not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution if viewed in the right way. Over the coming decade, we could see new ways of building homes come in which could reduce costs and make homes more affordable for more people.

What are we talking about? We are talking about robots building homes in factories, that’s what. Before you scoff in derision and disbelief, it’s already happening in the Netherlands. There is a socially rented house in Eindhoven built by robots and transported to the site and then fitted out and made habitable. This even has its own website and it has been featured in the serious press.

Land is about 20% of building cost, and labour and materials are each around 33%. So if we can reduce the labour and building costs, we can hope to reduce house prices.

Of course we still need the land to build on at scale, but that can be discussed.

We do have the prospect of a leftfield development coming in and changing our lives. Who foresaw mobile phones coming in? And who would scoff at them now? Robots have been making cars for decades and people don’t bat an eyelid. Does it matter whether a robot operated by a human made your car or a human being did?

It’s the same for houses. In coming years, we could see a boom in housebuilding with robots making the homes in factories from composite materials, then these homes get put up on the site. There will be shiny new homes and pulsing new communities.

Nobody can doubt that we need more homes and we need them to be affordable and get built quickly. Cheaper homes will be good for Bristol. It could happen, over time. John Simpson Bristol