Letter from Stewart Baseley: These problems with Kickstart

Homebuyers quite rightly are the best judges of private housing quality

Homebuilders must interpret and meet buyers’ expectations or go out of business.

A 2008 survey by Cabe found 91% were satisfied with their home (5% dissatisfied).

Office of Fair Trading research in 2008 found 80% were likely to buy new again, 70% from the same builder.

The Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) 2009 survey of 21,000 new home buyers found 77% were satisfied with the quality of their home (13% dissatisfied) and 76% would buy again from the same builder.

The Building for Life (BfL) scheme, devised by the HBF, the Civic Trust and Cabe, was never intended as a comparative site scoring scheme. It was a set of desirable criteria, some design-related, some not. There is a continuing discussion between HBF, the government and Cabe about the appropriateness of the Building for Life (BfL) criteria to score and compare design quality across housing schemes and as a tool in planning.

The HCA’s objective with Kickstart is to get mothballed sites into production to deliver much-needed homes and to preserve and create jobs. BfL was only one of a range of considerations used by the HCA when it drew up its Kickstart shortlist. Cabe’s desk-based scoring of Kickstart schemes suffered from an added problem that insufficient information about a particular BfL question resulted in a zero score.

Homebuyers will make their own judgments about the quality of homes on Kickstart schemes. But this initiative will lift housing completions and expand industry employment, something I would have thought everybody would welcome.

Stewart Baseley, executive chairman, Home Builders Federation