25 Jul Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak lay out their plans to increase available homes in the UK
Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak have pledged to see off Conservative rebellions over housebuilding as they lay out plans to increase available homes in the UK. Plans include easing the development of shops and takeaways into domestic properties and a focus on developing brownfield sites. Developers have long expressed their concerns with how the state of Britain’s planning system is contributing to the housing crisis, now councillors nationwide are beginning to notice the impact. Results from the latest National Planning Barometer found that two thirds thought the housing crisis was getting worse and that housing supply in their local area was severely lacking.
The report concluded that there was a “crisis of resource that sees local authority planning departments unable to deliver the service on which the system relies”. Clive Holland, broadcaster on Fix Radio – the UK’s only national radio station for builders – explains what the UK must do to meet homebuilding targets, with a point of view from the trades.
Six in ten of those surveyed said their planning teams lacked the resources to do the most efficient job, reflecting the concerns of developers. Yet, the report illustrates how planning teams had become disappointed by council planning committees voting against their recommendations, claiming a “fundamental difference of opinion” between planners and councillors. Nearly every councillor who responded to the poll confirmed they had voted against their planners’ advice at least once in the past year. This disconnect between planning officers recommendations and planning committee decisions ultimately affects developers being able to provide housing. The last six months of 2023 saw Barratt Development complete 6.9% more homes than 2021, but the first six months of 2023, completions were off 12.8% on the same period earlier, now proposing they may build 20% fewer homes.
Clive Holland, presenter at Fix Radio – the UK’s only national radio station dedicated to tradespeople – provides his insight on the current state of the construction industry:
“The government target of 300,000 houses to be built per year, even before COVID was extremely unrealistic for a couple of reasons. After Brexit, a lot of our support teams went back to their own countries, we didn’t have enough people in our industry, we’re already short of trades people as it is. Everybody except for emergency services, and the building industry, believe it or not, and trade associated trades, virtually stopped working during COVID, you know, 80% of the population were furloughed, and so on. So it was always going to be a tricky one, to try and get anywhere near that demand of 300,000 houses built.
“Now you’re in a situation where a lot of house builders have mothballed a lot of their sites because they can’t sell them due to rising interest rates. Lots of sites generally around the country would have been flooded with people buying off plan without even looking at the house.”
