HBF Weekly News Summary Friday 21 September 2007

Top stories this week London's new housing strategy - mayor pledges 50,000 more affordable homes by 2011... Read Health and Safety Construction Forum and Action Plan... Read Building for Life winners announced... Read

Top stories this weekLondon's new housing strategy - mayor pledges 50,000 more affordable homes by 2011... Read Health and Safety Construction Forum and Action Plan... Read Building for Life winners announced... Read Quick LinksGovernment NewsIndustry NewsHousing Market NewsEconomic NewsHBF News

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has published his draft housing strategy, which pledges 50,000 more affordable homes to be built in London over the next three years. This represents a fifty per cent increase in the delivery of affordable London homes and a doubling in the supply of homes for social rent.

The strategy coincides with the housing and planning powers, to be granted by Parliament to the Mayor of London which will give the Mayor direct responsibility for London's affordable housing budget worth over £1 billion a year.

His dedicated housing strategy sets out how the Mayor expects to use these powers to drive up the supply of new homes of all types across the capital over the next three years and beyond. This includes proposals for a new London-wide housing capacity study, to investigate whether it is possible to increase further the current target that 30,500 new homes to be built in London every year.

The draft strategy introduces measures to increase significantly the supply of affordable family-sized homes. It increases the target for social rented housing with three or more bedrooms from 35 per cent to over 40 per cent of overall supply, and will quadruple the number of new larger homes for low cost home ownership - providing many more opportunities for families on modest incomes who want to get on the property ladder.

Tackling climate change is one of the Mayor's highest priorities across all areas of his work. Accordingly, the strategy will ensure that public funding is only given to new homes meeting high standards of environmental performance and will expect new larger, strategic developments to deliver additional environmental benefits, such as combined cooling, heat and power.

The Mayor said: 

"This is a landmark moment for London's city-wide government - setting out what I want to do with the new powers and resources in order to increase affordable housing in the capital. We are building on the improvements we have already seen in areas like policing and transport and applying the same approach of planning and investment to tackle the supply of affordable homes.

"This strategy is a blueprint for tackling London's unique housing challenges. We will build more affordable homes because that is what London is crying out for, which is why there will be no rowing back from the fifty per cent affordable housing target across London. Any attempt to water down the fifty per cent affordable housing target would make it harder to get the new homes we need.

"The strategy will address climate change, one of our most urgent priorities, by building new homes and developments to much higher environmental standards."

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper said:

"Families in London, like the rest of the country, urgently need more affordable homes.  That's why we announced £8 billion of investment in the Housing Green Paper for thousands more affordable and social homes, and why we are backing more homes for London."

Adam Sampson, Chief Executive of Shelter said:

"Putting affordable housing at the centre of the new Draft Housing Strategy is good news for Londoners, particularly struggling first-time buyers and those suffering at the sharp end of the capital's housing crisis.

"It is now down to London boroughs to deliver on the target set by the Mayor that half of all newly built homes should be affordable.
"Shelter urges councils to put aside their party political differences and work with the Mayor to give all Londoners access to a safe, secure home."

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Peter Hain convened a Health and Safety Construction Forum on Monday which resulted in a framework of action, to cut workplace deaths and improve health and safety standards, being agreed by representatives of the trade unions, construction industry and other stakeholders. Executive Chairman Stewart Baseley represented the HBF.

Key areas to be considered for action agreed at the Forum include:

Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the Home Builders Federation attended the forum and said:

"This morning's meeting saw a constructive discussion between all stakeholders of the hugely important issue of construction safety.  HBF constantly strives to ensure the highest standards are maintained throughout the country, and we will be taking positive action with other partners to address concerns in this area."

The Strategic Forum Health and Safety Task Group will be asked to coordinate the development of the Framework. The Task Group will report on progress to Ministers by the end of the year.

More information>

The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have released a report 'Addressing Climate Change and Fuel Poverty - Energy measures information for Local Government', which restates the Government’s commitment for a national framework towards Zero Carbon by 2016.

The report states:

‘Given the ambition of the national timetable, the Government considers that local authorities should not set separate building standards from the Code for Sustainable Homes or set ad hoc timetables through the planning system to reach zero carbon emissions. There may be specific opportunities and local circumstances where authorities and developers can go further and faster. Any such higher standards for homes need to be set using the Code for Sustainable Homes rather than any other criteria. It may be that a local authority could focus on the carbon standards in the Code or the whole Code. These approaches on energy and building standards need to be properly introduced and tested through the planning system rather than on an ad hoc basis when individual applications are dealt with’.

View full report>

The National Housing Federation has claimed that the Government risks missing its target to make all new homes "zero carbon" by 2016 unless it forces private developers to sign up to legally-binding sustainable standards.

NHF Chief Executive, David Orr, claimed that while 92% of new homes built by housing associations meet current minimum sustainable criteria, only 2% of privately-built new homes do.

From April 2008 housing association homes must meet Code for Sustainable Homes level 3 standards to ensure they emit 25% less carbon, and by 2016, they must be "zero carbon".

But according to the National Housing Federation, private developers are not being compelled to make the same contribution. Without legally-binding regulations on reducing carbon emissions private developers will miss the 2016 target, the federation assets.

The NHF Chief Executive said:

"Currently, private developers are not being compelled to meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions at all.In fact, they are being allowed to put their profits ahead of the survival of future generations. It's time that ministers legally locked private developers into the same timetable as housing associations. We have long been calling for the Government to ensure that from April 2008 all new private homes emit 25% less CO2. And we would like ministers to make certain that all new privately-built homes are carbon neutral by 2016 at the very latest. Unless the Government compels the private sector to meet the same standards, and timetable, private companies will simply try to wriggle out of their environmental duties, saying it costs too much. At the moment, as housing associations are the only ones using sustainable building methods, the supply chain is artificially expensive and housing associations are having to shoulder the cost. This is unfair. And, in effect, ministers are getting us to do the private developers' research and development on the cheap.".

Responding to the National Housing Federation Press Agency report on the sustainability of new homes, HBF Executive Chairman Stewart Baseley said: “Following the 40% improvement in the energy efficiency standards of new homes already seen in the last few years, private homebuilders are now working hard with the Government and other stakeholders to make further improvements to help tackle climate change. 
 
“HBF is fully signed-up to the 2016 Commitment, which aims to deliver an increased supply of homes to zero-carbon standards by 2016, and will drastically reduce the carbon emissions from new homes in the interim.  The national timetable the Government has set out for changes in statutory building regulations will enable homebuilders to work progressively to improve building standards, including the incorporation of groundbreaking renewable energy technology.”

John Slaughter also put the industry’s position forward in an interview on Channel 4’s lunchtime news today.

This week the Building For Life winners for 2007 were announced:

Gold winners:

Silver winners:

Building for Life is the national standard for well-designed housing and neighbourhoods. It is led by CABE and the HBF. Since it was launched in 2002, 50 housing schemes have been awarded the Building for Life standard.

View more on the winners>

It has been announced that the design quality of recently completed affordable housing in England will be assessed by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE)

The Housing Corporation has commissioned CABE to audit National Affordable Housing Programme (NAHP) schemes where homes have been developed and completed via the partnership route. CABE will provide an independent assessment of the homes, through a series of audits using the  Building for Life assessment criteria as a basis for assessing the design quality of the external environment.

The Housing Corporation has agreed a service level agreement with CABE who will assess the design quality of an extensive sample of schemes funded by the Housing Corporation.

The announcement follows on from the requirements to partners set out in the Housing Corporation's new Design and Quality Strategy, which emphasises the importance of good design in housing in creating sustainable developments and delivering social, economic and environmental benefits. The audits will be carried out on developments completed in the last three years and will focus on the external environment rather than internal environment or the environmental performance of the home itself.

A new urban design manual that sets out strategies for creating quality places and promoting community cohesion has been launched by the Government’s key agencies responsible for delivering housing and regeneration.

The Urban Design Compendium 2, by national regeneration agency English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation highlights leadership, integration, collaboration, long-term involvement and legacy as being the five fundamental building blocks of sustainable development.

The compendium also identifies the main barriers to good urban design and suggests examples for overcoming these, drawing on a range of exemplar schemes in the UK and abroad.

Urban Design Compendium 2 manual

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) released figures from its latest housing market survey this week, revealing that activity in the housing market has begun to increase in momentum following the July slowdown.

As typical for the time of year the number of registered buyers, properties on estate agents’ books and sales per agent all rose during August as the market prepared for the end of the summer lull period. However, with uncertainty clouding the economic climate, the majority of these figures were still down on the same time last year.

View the full survey results>

The latest house price index from Rightmove shows:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/pdf/p/hpi/HousePriceIndex17thSep2007.pdf

The Building Societies Association has launched a new report examining for the first time the public's views on residential property purchase. The report, "House Price Expectations,' is based on research by MORI and shows that the majority of buyers (71%) accept that property prices could fall this year and if they did less than 2% of owners would sell immediately.
 
Commenting on the report, Adrian Coles, Director General of the BSA, said:
 
"Consumers have a realistic view of the property market and house price expectations have not fuelled a price boom. For most, the primary motivation for buying a property is derived from the satisfaction of owning a home, rather than the financial motivations of capital appreciation. Reassuringly for those critics, the results prove that the majority of buyers have put considerable thought into their purchase, and have entered the housing market with their eyes wide open.
 
"The findings suggest that households' confidence in the housing market is robust and points to the stability of the market if house prices were to fall. There would need to be some shock to the wider economy, for consumers' confidence in their ability to hold on to their property to be shaken."

The CBI’s Director-General, Richard Lambert, has been supportive of the steps taken by the Treasury and the Bank of England to stabilise the turmoil in financial markets. Market uncertainty is likely to persist for some time, but already there are some policy issues that the CBI will need to consider in terms of the impact on the real economy.

The latest CBI Economic Forecast, published this week,  showed that the UK economy is in good shape to ride out the current financial storm as businesses have been growing strongly this year and the fundamentals of the economy are sound. Predicting a reduction in consumer spending growth next year and weaker overseas demand, the CBI revised down its economic growth forecast for 2008 by 0.2% to 2.2%. At the same time, it lifted this year’s annual growth rate by 0.1% to 3.0%, after a better-than-expected third quarter.

The current turmoil has eliminated any expectations of higher interest rates this autumn, and the CBI continues to believe the next move will be down. The Bank will need to be alive to the issue of confidence in setting interest rates, but purely on the basis of the outlook for the real economy in 2008, there would seem to be little need for a cut in rates before next spring.

HBF has just submitted answers to the OFT questionnaire to trade associations and other industry-wide bodies covering Warranties, Building Regulations, and Planning and Competition. Our response is available to HBF members at the link below:
 
HBF Response to OFT trade association questionnaire
 
To view this information you will need to logged on to the HBF website. If you have forgotten your membership login please email catherine.wilson@hbf.co.uk
 
We are now working on the final part of the questionnaire, covering Consumer Matters, which we will submit early next week.

Visit the HBF stand at HB07 on the 9th of 10th of October 2007 for your chance to win a TomTom Satellite Navigation System.

Whilst you are there, why not listen to one of the live interviews taking place or speak to one of the HBF team at our ‘Ask the Expert’ sessions.

For full details of what is happening on the HBF stand (G9) visit the website: http://www.hbf.co.uk/index.php?id=1677

The HBF Technical Conference entitled ‘the road to zero carbon is paved with building regulations' will be taking place at York Racecourse on Wednesday 14th November 2007.

To view the full agenda for the day and book online>

Now in its fourth year, this Exhibition and Conference is a must for those working in the home building Industry. Housing Market Intelligence, the extensive free briefings and conference programme plus the exhibition, bring together key industry figures to highlight all that is new in the home building industry.

More information

The key information initiative for senior figures in the house building industry, HMI comprises an annual report launched at the conference, which this year aims to help delegates and readers 'Develop strategies in the face of rapid change'.

More information and to register

Jo Weston

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