Sarah White, Residential Sector Manager for British Gypsum responds to the Government’s housing white paper ‘Fixing our Broken Housing Market’ launched today.
“We desperately need more homes – to rent or buy, so it is good to see the Government addressing and implementing measures to tackle failures and kick start the present flagging housing schedule.
“In the latest attempts to revive and fix the housing market, councils will be obliged to produce up-to-date housing plans aligned with the existing housing demand, as well as being based on the assessment of local needs. They will also be given more power to pressure housebuilders to boost building.
“The idea being to speed up and simplify the whole building process in order to create homes quickly, which is urgently needed. The current timeframe between planning permission and build is far too long, leading to stagnant projects. Councils will now need to keep all plans updated every five years and will play a vital role going forward, helping to focus efforts on a wider range of affordable housing and different delivery methods.
“We were also very pleased to note that support will additionally be given to small and medium businesses and housebuilders to help increase the potential of new housing stock. The latest NHBC statistics show that up to 90 percent of new housing stock is registered by housebuilders building over 100 units.
“Work certainly needs to be done to reverse the decline of the small housebuilder, i.e. SME’s building less than 100 units, and help to build a more efficient supply chain framework necessary to deliver the volumes of housebuilding required. With this new housing vision and a more stringent focus applied, we have a chance to build homes that meet demands and are quality assured.”