HBF, on behalf of its larger members, has published a ‘Statement of intent’ outlining an ambition to deliver further increases in housing supply.
The Statement demonstrates house builders’ commitment to work closely with Government to build on the big increases in supply of recent years to deliver the Government’s target of building 1 million homes in this parliament.
HBF and Government have been in discussions for a number of months aimed at ensuring output continues to rise. The Government continues to respond to barriers to housing growth, including through reforms in the Housing and Planning Bill 2015-16; whilst the industry has pledged to continue to grow its businesses, invest more in training and provide more transparency around build out rates. HBF will also develop a ‘land exchange’ aimed at allowing larger builders to sell sites or parts of sites to smaller builders.
Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the HBF, said; “Over the past two years the industry has responded to the positive policies introduced by Government and has delivered huge increases in output. All indicators clearly show the significant progress being made and last year we delivered more than 180,000 new homes in England. Moving forward the industry is committed to going further, and provided that the political, economic and policy conditions are conducive, to deliver further increases in supply. House builders are investing in their supply chains and have taken on tens of thousands of new workers to ensure there is the capacity and skills to deliver more high quality homes. Working with Government, and others, we want to ensure that the investment environment remains attractive and that the right measures are in place to support the delivery of the homes the country needs.”
Brandon Lewis, the Housing and Planning Minister, warmly welcomed the commitment of the house builders to increase housing supply. He said “Government has got the house builders building again. This statement of intent shows house builders are committed to continuing the growth in supply we have seen under our administration – building more of the homes that this country needs. I welcome the statement from the HBF and working together this confirms we can achieve our ambition of delivering 1 million homes.”
Alan Brown, CEO of CALA Group (one of the largest 14 members of the HBF who has signed up to the agreement) said: “We welcome further cooperation between the Government and the housebuilding industry as we work together to deliver the housing that the UK so desperately needs. This statement of intent represents an extremely positive step towards removing some of the barriers that have historically subdued the delivery of new homes in the UK.
“At CALA we are working hard to support the Government’s target of one million new homes by 2020. As a Group, we have already more than doubled our annual volumes from 449 homes in 2010 to 993 last year, and we remain on track to increase our production still further, building between 2,000 to 2,500 homes per year by 2018 based on current market conditions.”
