An independent peer has ripped into the “catalogue of failures” of the UK housebuilding industry, which he said is “failing us badly”.
Lord Best, a former director of the National Federation of Housing Associations, criticised the “record profits” of an industry “dominated by a half a dozen volume housebuilders”.
He said he was concerned by the “nation’s abject dependency on the sector”.
Best criticised the housebuilding industry for: “Poor quality in construction and design; miserable space standards; rip-off leases for houses, with escalating ground rents; deteriorating satisfaction of buyers; avoidance of housing for older people, where profits are lower; rejection of brownfield sites and a concentration on the easier greenfield opportunities.”
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He also pilloried them for: “Little concept of creating properly planned places; sitting on land with planning consent until prices go ever upward; and, perhaps worst of all, reneging on Section 106 agreements and wriggling out of obligations to provide affordable homes for local people, on opaque grounds of ‘viability’ and housebuilders’ ‘right’ to make at least 20% profit on the deal.”
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Best noted that while major housebuilders’ shares had risen by 127% in the past four years, compared with 21% for the FTSE All-Share Index, he believed that “the private housebuilding sector has lost the confidence of the whole nation”.
The peer said planners needed to be more resolute in facing up to housebuilders, but admitted that “we are dependent on a planning system that has been starved of resources and now sorely lacks the capability to enforce quality housebuilding and place making”.
“We must restore authority and capacity to the planners, who are our front line against the social and environmental costs [or] we will otherwise suffer at the hands of over-powerful housebuilding interests,” he said.
Best said the prime minister’s announcement of a £2bn grant fund for councils and housing associations to deliver 25,000 new homes for social rent was a “recognition of the need to target those who can afford only a modest rent”, but he said it was dwarfed by the extra £10bn provided for the Help to Buy scheme, which would only “feed the housebuilders’ addiction”.
“Sadly… housebuilders [are] apparently too big to displease,” he added.
The peer was speaking at a House of Lords debate on the impact of the government’s policies on availability and affordability of housing, started by Labour’s Lord Smith of Leigh.
A spokesman for the Home Builders Federation said: “Housebuilders have delivered a 50% increase in supply over the past three years and are committed to building even more homes in the years to come and playing their part in solving the nation’s acute housing crisis.
“In addition to new homes, housebuilders are increasingly making billions of pounds worth of contributions to improved local infrastructure and amenities, providing an increasing percentage of the nation’s affordable homes and training and employing hundreds of thousands of people.
“House builders are a key part of the solution to our housing crisis and all people involved in housing supply, including politicians, need to be working together to develop workable solutions to the challenges we face.”
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