Developers and a severe shortage of bricklayers are slowing down the rate of home building in Britain and change is needed to meet the Government target of 300,000 new builds a year by the mid 2020s.
The initial findings from the independent review of house building by Sir Oliver Letwin, which has been asked to look specifically at what can be one to speed up the slow rate of house building on major sites puts the onus on developers.
It says that developers are slowing the system down by limiting the number of new built homes that are released for sale at any one time and hits out at the practice which is designed to prevent a glut of new built homes driving down prices in the local market and is known as the ‘absorption rate’.
However the report suggests that developers could increase the choice of design, size and tenure of new homes without impacting on the local market and therefore speed up the rate at which houses are built and sold.
‘To obtain more rapid building out of the largest sites we need more variety within those sites,’ the initial report says, adding that final recommendations on improving build out rates will be published in the autumn.
The study also suggests that a shortage of British bricklayers will have a significant effect on new home building and to meet the shortfall it calls for 15,000 more bricklayers, almost a quarter of the size of the current workforce, to be trained over the next five years.
It points out that to raise production of new homes from about 220,000 to about 300,000, the Government and major house builders work together on a five year ‘flash’ programme of pure on the job training.
‘It is clear that the main cause for delay is the absorption rate. We found that if house builders were to offer more variety of homes and in more distinct settings then overall build out rates could be substantially accelerated,’ said Letwin.
Letwin and the study panel visited 15 large sites of between 1,000 and 15,000 homes in areas of high demand in London, the South East, West Midlands and the North West.
The Government commissioned this Independent Review as part of its comprehensive plans to deliver a housing market fit for the future and build the homes that communities need.
