Bargate Homes Managing Director Joins APPG for Housing Market and Housing Delivery
Mark White, Managing Director of Hampshire-based premium housebuilder Bargate Homes, has been invited to join the advisory board for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Housing Market and Housing Delivery. Bargate Homes is currently delivering 900 homes across six live developments and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivid – Hampshire’s largest provider of affordable homes.
The invitation to join the advisory board for the influential APPG, which meets up to 12 times a year, came from the office of Ben Everitt MP, Chairman of the Group, who also sits on the House of Commons Committee for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The role of the APPG board includes providing counsel to parliamentarians, proposing topics for research, and meeting with ministers and other policymakers. Advisory board members provide insight to each other and to policymakers, with the aim of improving the way that the government regulates and supports the housing industry.
Ben Everitt, Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North, and Chairman of the APPG for Housing Market and Housing Delivery, said: “The purpose of this Group is to inform and stimulate debate on relevant areas of policy affecting the UK housing market; to promote the importance of the delivery of new homes across all tenures; and to introduce parliamentarians to those involved in delivering housing and other experts and practitioners in the field.
“I am delighted to welcome Mark White of Bargate Homes to the advisory board. The government has a duty to ensure people living in the UK have decent, secure, and affordable homes to live in. Without the input from those who are actively developing new homes across the UK, we couldn’t address the industry’s greatest challenges in an informed and constructive fashion.
“This Group has been formed by parliamentarians who share a belief in the importance of building new homes, and want to raise housing high up the political agenda. Despite decades of discussion and countless policy initiatives, the UK housing crisis remains. Successive, well-meaning policy interventions in the housing market have created a complex web of unintended consequences, leading to unnecessary delay, uncertainty, and cost in the home-building process.”
Officers for the Housing Market and Housing Delivery APPG comprise; Peter Gibson MP, Conservative, Darlington; Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP, Labour, Brighton Kemptown; Gagan Mohindra MP, Conservative, South West Hertfordshire; Andrew Lewer MP MBE, Conservative, Northampton South; and Paul Holmes MP, Conservative, Eastleigh.
Members of the APPG include; Christian Wakeford MP, Labour, Bury South; Bob Blackman MP, Conservative, Harrow East; Greg Smith MP, Conservative, Buckingham; James Sunderland MP, Conservative, Bracknell; Lord Porter of Spalding CBE; Baron Taylor of Warwick; Paul Howell MP, Conservative, Sedgefield; Shaun Bailey MP, Conservative, West Bromwich West; Simon Fell MP, Conservative, Barrow and Furness; and Dehenna Davison MP, Conservative, Bishop Auckland.
Mark White, Managing Director, Bargate Homes said: “With mandatory local authority housing targets now scrapped by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, there has never been a more pressing need to work with government to address the vast challenges faced by the housebuilding industry.
“The energy price cap will increase to £3,000 for the average family home for 12 months from April. But when lowering our carbon footprint and reducing energy consumption is so critical, much more needs to be done to help fix the planning system, solve the prolonged phosphates, nitrates, and nutrient neutrality issue, and stimulate the new homes market.
“While housebuilding challenges and risks predominantly revolve around land and planning, there are other matters that also deserve meaningful debate. Green Mortgages could be subsidised, so that monthly repayments for the most energy-efficient new homes become significantly cheaper. The Feed-in Tariff for household renewable energy generation should also be reintroduced, to make living in a home with solar panels much more financially rewarding.
“We are on site at six developments across Hampshire, Dorset, and West Sussex, which are delivering over 900 open market and affordable family homes. We have 500 tradespeople working for us, and with the impact of planning and nutrient neutrality issues, Brexit, the prolonged unrest in Ukraine, soaring energy costs, and inflation, it costs £20,000 more to build a typical three-bedroom Bargate home than it did only five years ago. I am looking forward to contributing my thoughts to the APPG – navigating through the housing target void.”
