Communities minister Sajid Javid accused house builders of dragging their feet and urged them to speed up build-out rates in a bid to solve the housing crisis or risk losing planning permission.
Speaking at the NHBC annual lunch last week the DCLG minister said that government had provided the private sector with a series of tools they needed to speed up building, including measures such as Home Buy and funding to unlock sites. “All I ask in return is that you use them,” he said.
Sajid Javed: build on sites
Javid said: “The number of plots approved for residential development each year rose by 59% between 2011 and 2015. But the number of building starts rose by just 29%. In 2012, permission was granted for more than 195,000 homes. Yet three years later, 40,000 of those homes still hadn’t been completed.
“That’s a town the size of Hartlepool, just waiting to be built.”
The minsiter acknowledged that it was a free market but added: “If you own land and you don’t want to build on it, that’s your decision to make. But you can’t expect me and the government to go out on a limb and not see a return.
“If you want us to pull out all the stops to create the sites, you have to build on them.
The permission gap has to come down. The build-out rate has to go up.”
Javid acknowledged in his speech that rates for new home completions were rising: “Last year, almost 190,000 new homes were completed and put on the market. But even if the number of people coming to live in this country falls, we’ll have to build at least 220,000 homes a year for the next decade just to keep up with population growth.”
He added: “The average house price right now in England is almost eight times the average income. And that’s at a time when many first-time buyers need a deposit of 20% or more before a mortgage provider will even talk to them.
“The average couple renting in the private sector now spends nearly half their combined income on rent. That’s money they’re not saving for a deposit. But, from where they’re standing, government and big business are ignoring their needs.
“They want a housing market that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. And it’s up to us – government and industry – to deliver it.”
Javid said that the government had doubled the housing budget to more than £20bn over the next five years, including the largest investment in affordable housing since the 1970s.
The Autumn Statement included a £2bn pilot of accelerated construction on public sector land, £1.4bn to get started on an extra 40,000 affordable homes, and a £2.3bn fund to help create the infrastructure that will unlock sites for 100,000 new homes.
