18 comment Comment Comments from leading experts from across the sector. The industry advocate
Sarah McMonagle, director of external affairs at FMB, praises the Redfern Review as a non- biased assessment of housebuilding that has some important recommendations.
as the first major review into home ownership in over a decade. Led by Taylor Wimpey chief executive Peter Redfern, Taylor Wimpey, the Review is not a one-sided party political report, but instead an independent assessment of home ownership and trends in the wider housing market. Had the Redfern Review been commissioned
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“In the early part of this decade, housing completions were allowed to kick around near the 100,000 a year mark – which is a damning indictment of how we plan ahead in this country”
by the Government, it might have received more press coverage. It’s a thoroughly researched and ambitious piece of work that is part economic analysis, part policy recommen- dations that will be of interest to most Housebuilder & Developer readers. There’s lit- tle in the way of blinding revelations, but it confirms and builds upon some of the criticisms we in the industry have made of Government policy over the past few years. The standout recommendation is the
creation of an independent Housing Commis- sion, based along the same lines as that of the existing Infrastructure Commission. The com- mission would plan for the UK’s housing supply long term, have a bipartisan make up and, cru- cially, it would agree 10 and 20 year mandatory Government housing targets. Every industry seeks continuity on which to
base long-term planning and this is something that the housebuilding sector has long asked the Government for. It is glaringly obvious that a sudden reduction in demand prompted by a recession is generally followed by a slump in house prices and, subsequently, in the supply of new homes. Yet, in the early part of this decade, housing
completions were allowed to kick around near the 100,000 a year mark – which is a damning indictment of how we plan ahead in this coun- try. The failure to keep building homes at that time is the context for the current housing crisis and Redfern is rightly very strong on the need to
respond online at
www.hbdonline.co.uk
ou could be forgiven for not having heard of it, but the Labour Party recently released what has been billed
counter-balance the natural volatilities of the housebuilding market. The report suggested that the new
Commission would have access to “a set of read- ily deployable counter-cyclical tools, which could be enacted in the case of a downturn.” This chimes with a House of Lords report released in the summer which came to a similar conclusion – that currently, the country desper- ately lacks methods for dealing with a marked drop in private sector activity. In a downturn, it is normally SMEs which
bear the brunt. The number of SME house builders halved in the years following the financial crisis, which is a reflection of the brutal economic environment they faced. Lacking the resources to struggle through the tougher conditions, many went to the wall, leav- ing us with a much weaker and less diverse house building sector. If a Housing Commission with those kinds of supportive tools is created, we would hope that part of its focus would be on supporting the more vulnerable smaller develop- ers. Allowing local authorities to borrow to build social homes at times of economic downturn and mandating them to work primarily with SME developers, would be one means of provid- ing a real counter balance to the forces of boom and bust. If I were to level one criticism of Redfern’s
conclusions, it’s the lack of discussion on which sorts of firms will build our homes. An important part of devising a long term solution to the UK’s chronically malfunctioning housing market will be working out how to nur- ture a diverse housebuilding sector capable of building in sufficient numbers and at sufficient speed. This will necessarily involve a flourishing SME sector, of which the report makes no mention. Redfern might be looking to deal with the big issues but it’s important that none of us lose sight of the crucial importance of the contribution which needs to be made by SMEs across the sector.
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