A new inquiry studying housing demand will include looking at the part smaller builders can play in innovation and developing difficult sites. The house of lords’ built environment committee will see how smaller builders can be encouraged back to the supply point. Cross-party committee chair Baroness Neville-Rolfe told Housing Today: “You get some innovation and vibrancy and they do things that perhaps a bigger builder would not do. Historically there’s quite a lot of smaller builders who have fallen by [...]

Office demand in the South East is picking up thanks to large corporates signing up for significant amounts of space, reports property agent Savills. It said offices showed a strong end to the year up to the first quarter thanks to companies such as Amazon and InterContinental Hotels signing up for significant workspace in Reading and Windsor. Commercial research director Steven Lang said: “Despite the pandemic impacting negatively on the sentiment towards the office market, it is fascinating to see [...]

University towns like Oxford, Cambridge and Canterbury are predicted to see their best house sale volumes in the coming months despite the demise of the stamp duty tax holiday. Knight Frank research, from 1995 to 2019, shows Oxford experiencing the largest volume of its sales from July to September with nearly 31 per cent occurring over this period. Cambridge has a similarly high level of completions with 30 per cent occurring with Canterbury also experiencing strong figures at 29 per [...]

Labour MPs have tabled a debate motion and vote this afternoon in a move to gain cross-party support for watering down the government’s forthcoming planning bill. The new bill is expected to follow the Planning for the Future white paper published last year where land would be earmarked for either growth or development. Shadow communities and local government secretary Steve Reed said: “Good development can only happen when developers and communities work together.” Currently, residents can raise their concerns about [...]

Average earnings on London building sites showed a 4.5 per cent month-on-month increase in May to £885 a week, according to construction payroll data from Hudson Contract. The firm is the UK’s largest payer of freelance site workers with more than 2,500 companies across England and Wales on its books. Managing director Ian Anfield attributed wage inflation in the capital to a reduction in migrant EU labour. “We are starting to see the impact of people leaving the UK ahead [...]

Housebuilders will have to offer effective aftercare service on new homes to iron out snagging problems in a new draft code on quality out for consultation this month. The code requires builders to offer greater consumer protection to new home buyers from when they walk into a sales office through to two years after occupation. New homes quality board, NHQB, chair Natalie Elphicke MP said: “This is a major milestone in our work to introduce a new and comprehensive framework [...]

Easier access to the best design from across the world is to be available via a new architects’ recognition system, the government has announced. The new initiative will allow architects with certain international qualifications to join the UK register administered by regulator the Architects Registration Board, ARB. The National Federation of Builders housing and planning policy head Rico Wojtulewicz described the move as extremely useful. “We should always be ensuring the best talent can work in the UK and international recognition [...]

The average UK property price has reached a record high of £261,743 with Wales the strongest performing region according to Halifax’s house price index for May. Annual growth surged to 9.5 per cent, meaning the average UK home has increased in value by more than £22,000 over the last 12 months. Halifax managing director Russell Galley said the market was continuing to be buoyed by the current stamp duty holiday with prospective buyers racing to complete before June’s deadline. “The [...]

Developers and housebuilders warn the government is unlikely to hit its goal of 300,000 new homes built a year by the mid-2020s unless it ups its planning permission numbers. They are calling for at least 1.7m planning applications to be granted claiming the current pipeline of 1.3m homes with permission to be built by March 2025 is not enough. The Land Promoters and Developers Federation, LPDF, and Home Builders Federation, HBF, claim planning permission data, such as Glenigan’s, includes sites [...]

The building industry has fine-tuned its 20-year blueprint to make the UK’s 28m existing homes greener ahead of the government’s imminent release of its heat and buildings strategy. The Construction Leadership Council, CLC, together with 38 signatories, has written to business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng urging for its proposals to be adopted in the forthcoming white paper. Chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders, FMB and CLC’s domestic repairs maintenance and improvements working party chair, Brian Berry, said: “This will [...]

Developers will soon be expected to offer discounts of between 30 to 50 per cent on some of the new build homes they build for local first-time buyers on modest incomes. Housing minister Christopher Pincher has said at least a quarter of developers’ contributions to affordable housing should include these types of discounted homes. “Ensuring access to homeownership remains a key priority and challenge for this government. However, rising prices, high deposits and difficulty accessing mortgage finance still mean that [...]

Smaller housebuilders are to be given a better chance of bidding to develop public land following a major overhaul of the system. Housing accelerator Homes England is making the process more flexible and simplifying access so smaller developers and new entrants can participate. Homes England chief land and development officer Stephen Kinsella said: “This new digital system marks a huge step forward, making it much easier for developers to bid for our land. I’d encourage our current partners, as well [...]