AI-Powered Timber Factories Speed UK Bid for 300,000 Homes

A fully automated factory run by Donaldson Timber Systems in Witney, Oxfordshire, is using artificial-intelligence-guided robot arms and lasers to prefabricate walls, floors and roofs from timber. The plant turns out enough panels for about 100 homes each week and, according to the company, trims roughly 10 weeks from on-site construction compared with brick or concrete block methods. The push comes as the British government seeks to raise annual housing completions to 300,000. A study by consultancy Rider Levett Bucknall found that building with timber is 2.8 percent cheaper than masonry, while Bellway calculates that the material’s carbon footprint is lower than breeze blocks because wood stores rather than emits carbon. Industry executives say the combination of robotics and timber could ease both labour shortages and environmental constraints. Timber still represents a minority of new homes—about 40,500 of the 200,000 units completed in England in fiscal 2023/24—and the United Kingdom trails continental Europe in construction automation, with just 0.5 robots per 10,000 workers versus 1.5 on the continent, ING estimates. Westminster last June earmarked £40 million for cross-sector robotics hubs, and major builders including Bellway, Vistry and Taylor Wimpey are opening or planning their own timber-frame factories. Challenges remain: roughly 80 percent of the timber used in Britain is imported, and lenders remain cautious about mortgages on wood-framed properties despite updated fire-safety standards. Even so, the Structural Timber Association believes off-site timber construction could eventually supply about a third of the government’s housing target, signalling a potential shift in one of Europe’s slowest-moving building sectors.