4 INDUSTRY NEWS
FROM THE EDITOR
James Parker
Now that Trump is back on the throne in the US, we are reminded of the important maxim which the returning President made his own, of being aware of ‘fake news.’ With the rise of AI, the risk of fake news becomes more and more prevalent, with the possibility of irrelevant or inaccurate information being peppered into the truth more often.
The question is, are we able to decipher the facts from the ‘nearly-facts.’ This is also highlighted by a recent story from Barbour Index regarding UK construction contract awards being up 15% in value over 2024. At least they responsibly caveated it in the headline with ‘all is not as it seems.’ However, AI, and maybe a large proportion of readers, might be most interested in the fi rst few words.
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The good news part is of course being “carried” by infrastructure contract awards, as Barbour Index admits, with a string of big contract awards through . But housing spend remains fl at at growth with new housing applications continuing to fall. For the second year running housing applications were down by 6%, following a 15% fall in 2023. Infrastructure projects, by contrast, and particularly green energy initiatives, grew by 56%. 2024 was a truly terrible year for housebuilding, measured against the hopes and promises of the new Government. We can only hope that 2025 has better news in store, with Labour hopefully putting some meat behind its promises of freeing up planning to enable the numbers of homes built that it wants to see.
Housing activity remained stagnant, with just 1% growth, despite efforts by the Labour government to boost the sector. Planning approvals were also down , dropping below bn for the fi rst time since despite the new government’s efforts to kick start activity since the election in July.
Barbour AB head of business and client analytics, Ed riffi ths commented “Despite the headline growth, not all is as it seems. Infrastructure has been carrying the rest of the industry on its back in 2024.”
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As well as continued cost rises, skills shortages and market uncertainty from a range of factors, resulting insolvencies such as the collapse of SG have had maor ripples across the sector, said riffi ths. igh interest rates have further reduced demand, as you know. You may also share the ‘stubbornly low confi dence across the sector, and not be convinced by abours promises. riffi ths didnt offer much hope, saying that Barbour was looking to “emerging sectors” like data centres, to lead growth.
ore disturbing than all this, was disappointed to have a leafl et pushed through my front door from something called the ‘National Housing Party.’ They are a tin pot, two-man outfi t based in ldham, but are trying to spread their message nationwide it seems, tethering their slightly-to-the-right-of- Farage policies to the housing industry in a way that leaves a bad taste.
As if the challenges facing the sector weren’t tough enough, you have divisive political elements like this using housing as yet another tool to target immigrants, saying that we are “giving refugees housing before our own citizens,” and we should leave the UN Refugee Convention; to my mind one of the things that makes us a ‘civilised’ nation along with things like the NHS. Although there are many repercussions of housing genuine refugees, a policy that refuses to do this is unlikely to help the industry build houses any faster, and in fact it’s probably a rare source of housebuilding growth currently.
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We need to take the politics out of housebuilding and ensure that the targets are based on local need.
James Parker
Publisher Anthony Parker
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