The man behind a brand-new $50M robotic offsite housing factory in Essex with the capacity to supply 4,000 homes a year has insisted there is “no comparison” between his business and recent modular manufacturing failures.
Bob Weston, chairman and managing director of Weston Homes, which this week launched its British Offsite business from a 137,000 ft² factory in Braintree, Essex, said that failed volumetric modular manufacturers such as Ilke and L&G Modular should not be compared to factories such as his producing homes using panelized systems.
Weston said he accepted it was not ideal to be launching the new factory into the teeth of a widely forecast housing downturn but said he would “absolutely” make a success of it, and was not concerned by the recent modular collapses.
Weston has invested $60M in the factory, which is designed to produce light gauge steel frame closed panels for use within high-rise housing schemes. The wall panels, built using a largely robotized system supplied by Swedish engineer Randek, are designed to fit within traditionally built concrete structures, and have already supplied schemes of up to 29 stories with the system from its previous smaller factory.
Bob Weston said: “We’re not a volumetric housebuilder. There’s a market for it – building student accommodation, Travel Lodges, Premier Inns – there’s a market for it. [But] I don’t see it in high-density urban regeneration, that’s why we never went down that route five years ago. We identified this [panelized system] as the right way to go.”
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Gary Fleisher, the Modcoach, author
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