Build more homes: There is no silver bullet

Inside Housing: Build More Homes Summit (left to right: Helen Moore, Diane Howcroft, Ben Fry, Marie Riordan)

Ralph Sutcliffe:

As a relative newcomer to the sector, I found Inside Housing’s Build More Homes Summit to be very well organised, with a great line up of speakers and really interesting sessions. I learnt a huge amount about the problems facing us, which prevent us from being able to build more homes. 

• Planning - backlog 

• Investment - lack of 

• Infrastructure - absent 

• Viability - numbers don’t stack up 

Frequent (to say the least) references were made to the Government’s 1.5 million new homes target and that in order to meet the target, we need to be building some 300,000 homes a year, a level which we haven’t achieved for 50 years.  

1. Are we going to meet it? 

2. How are we going to meet it? 

   
   

The answer to the first question was a fairly unanimous ‘No’. Not quite unanimous as there was one speaker (Tim Balcon - Chief executive CITB) who said we could build 300,000 homes “but it wouldn’t be good”, echoing another theme – that there is a need to push for numbers at pace, but quality is important. Tim advised that to meet current levels (150,000 to 170,000 new homes a year), there is a deficit of 50,000 people in the construction industry and this is exacerbated by only 1 in 3 people completing their training. We simply don’t have enough fully trained people to meet the target, efforts to do so would lead to poor quality builds, snagging and demands for wage increases. 

The answer to the second question, from many of the speakers across the various sessions was ‘There is no silver bullet’. Problems and challenges there are many, solutions, not so much. Panelists spoke of alarming problems such as there being 17,000 uncontracted Section 106 homes and that there are 150,000 children homeless and growing up in unsuitable temporary accommodation. The only solutions offered on the day came from Alex Notay (Chair and commissioner Radix Big Tent Housing Commission) who told us of recommendations they have made to the Government including – Create and implement a UK Housing Strategy and that we need Cross party agreement going forward. Absolutely right, but Kier Starmeresque in the lack of detail into how we actually achieve that.  

There was some optimism at the Summit, with the phrase “We expect to thrive in 25” being used (once!). However, I did hear “Survive 2025” being bandied about more often. All summed up by Toby Lloyd (Independent housing policy consultant and former No 10 special adviser) who brought the Summit to its close with a final thought:

“It could be worse”.