HBF today guardedly welcomed the Conservatives’ commitment in their Housing Green Paper to increasing housing supply - but it questioned whether the approach being adopted will actually lead to increased housing delivery. The challenge of a “bottom-up” approach is finding ways of incentivising local communities sufficiently to ensure that nationally, the required numbers of homes are built. Household projection targets show a desperate need for more new homes to be built. If the right climate cannot be created to deliver them, there will be clear and difficult social implications for the future – with the obvious risk of new pressure on house prices and continued affordability problems for people seeking to get a foot on the property ladder. But it is also vital that as well as incentives, a bottom up approach includes sufficient safeguards on the planned delivery of new homes to ensure that the business climate provides sufficient certainty for home builders to be able to invest on the scale necessary. Speaking today, Stewart Baseley, HBF executive chairman said, “Whilst welcoming the commitment to increase housing supply, the current proposals leave some critical issues unaddressed. We will continue to work closely with the Conservatives, but it is essential that any localist approach results in a climate in which sufficient housing can be delivered. If it doesn’t, we are storing up both social and affordability problems for the future.” Critical issues such as what is the process by which local housing requirements would be established; the role of home builders in determining this; and arrangements for allocating a developable land supply to build the homes needed all must be addressed if we are to meet housing need. - Ends – Notes to Editors: 1. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal representative body for private sector home builders and voice of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF's 300 member firms account for some 80% of all new homes built in England and Wales in any one year, and include companies of all sizes, ranging from multi-national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies: www.hbf.co.uk For media enquiries, or to arrange an interview, please contact Steve Turner 020 7960 1606 07919 307 760 steve.turner@hbf.co.uk
