The government’s ambitious target to build 1.5 million within the lifetime of the current parliament will be difficult but not impossible to achieve. However, significant hurdles and unhelpful policies will need to be addressed to get close to the figure.
This was the consensus view expressed at the recent Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee hearing looking at the capacity of the construction sector.
Competition and Markets Authority senior director for markets Dan Turnbull said the scale of the challenge was unprecedented and the UK housebuilding sector had not got close to these levels in the last 50 years. However, he was encouraged by the fact that there was united agreement on a figure for the whole parliament rather than shorter-term yearly goals.
In terms of the sector building capacity, he insisted there needed to be clarity and consistency in policy.
The Housing Forum, director of policy and public affairs Anna Clarke said that 1.5 million homes was an unlikely target but it was “enormously helpful to have a target and cross-party agreement on it.”
She added that in her view the financial climate was incredibly tough at the moment and this was probably the hardest problem now with so many sites sitting empty.
With regards to skills required to deliver the homes within the timescale, Construction Industry Training Board , chief executive Tim Balcon said that 161,000 additional people would be required to build the homes needed and while he maintained that the numbers were achievable, the current training model was not fit for purpose to deliver the skill levels needed.
“With apprenticeships and further education training, there are too many dropping out. We need a more efficient and less wasteful model.”
He added: “Employers are wanting to hire experienced people they often haven’t the time to babysit those coming through training programmes. Often training is on day release when block release would be a lot better. People coming out of training need to be more valued.”
Construction Leadership Council co-chair Mark Reynolds echoed Balcon’s view on retention.
“Currently 50% of apprentices do not complete their apprenticeship, so there is massive leakage. There is also a high attrition rate with trainers and assessors. We are seeing an increase in experienced construction workers aged between 25-35 leaving the industry. We might look at ways to encourage these people to become trainers and assessors?”
Questioned why developers and investors were not taking advantage of a large number of existing planning permissions, Reynolds insisted the premise did not stand up to scrutiny.
He argued that in many instances even if areas had planning permissions they were not being developed because they were not viable as the costs to SME developers were just too high.
He insisted the industry had the capacity to grow quickly but that currently there were too many reasons – such as waiting for infrastructure, nutrient neutrality, for not building.
He said there were encouraging examples of local authorities ensuring projects were viable by putting the land in free and allowing developers to get projects off the ground. He added that housing had a low productivity record and that this needed to change if ambitious targets were to look realistic.