Housing crisis needs radical solutions

THERE is an awful lot of twaddle, hot air and nonsense talked about housing, usually by ill-informed carping critics, seeking to froth up emotion rather than understand the basic issues.

It isn’t that hard to grasp, if we think calmly and clearly. The fact is that Bristol has a massive housing shortfall. We haven’t got enough homes for our sharply rising population.

Bristol’s population in the Bristol City Council area is now above 470,000, and everyone needs a place to live, whether it be rented or bought.

Bristol has always grown by building on adjacent land. That is how cities grow. We can build all we want on brownfield sites, and do little bits of “infill” here and there, but this will not meet – can never meet – housing need.

Some campaigners ignore that and protest their ignorance. They are the Banana Brigade: “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything!” So we face a key question as a city: where shall we build, and what?

We need more land for housing growth and we need to build new sustainable communities with a mix of homes, some affordable and socially rented.

It is a “no-brainer” to put in new, clean green energy boilers, like air source heat pumps or, where it can be done, ground source heat pumps. This is far better than putting in fossil fuel-burning boilers. (Future generations may well call us “the fossil fuel fools” if we do).

So let’s think about building on the land on the fringes of the city, as we have always done.

Furthermore, we can make a start at retrofitting existing homes. There will be money aplenty in this. If we do not do this, others will take the lead.

You have to ask: what are the key drivers of gain? Meeting housing need and meeting the climate crisis challenge are two massive issues, and there will be new jobs and new prosperity in this.

We need to see through and ignore the panic and rhetoric and deal with this calmly. Only then can we work towards solutions. And let’s not forget that, in Eindhoven, people are living in homes built by robots, and they will soon be living in robot-built homes in Long Island and in Texas.

This cheaper and quicker new way of building homes could soon come to a Bristol which claims to be techsavvy. Why not?

John Simpson Bristol