20 COMMENT
that new homes should be high quality, more beautiful and part of the fabric of the local area. But SMEs already deliver this day in day out and have done since time immemorial. Unfortunately, over the last 40 years the sector has been on a downward spiral and successive governments have done little to stop this. I hope the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, if properly executed with plenty of engagement with SMEs, will be a turning point.
NEW BUILDING REGULATIONS ARE HERE Signifi cant changes to building regulations have come into force, in June. Their introduction has been a rocky road, with many FMB members, 52% of them, not prepared or unaware they were coming. This wasn’t by any means their fault, my members are on site, toiling away, which means communications need to be consistent and clear. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, and it was left to the industry to work out the changes, in the
absence of support from the Government. You can fi nd a free guide to the regulation changes on the FMB website (
www.fmb.org.uk).
The changes are designed to improve the energy effi ciency of buildings to help the country move towards its targets for net zero by 2050. What this means is that the Government wants newly built properties to be more energy effi cient. These changes are the advance party, ahead of the main event, the Future Homes Standard, which will be coming in a few years.
The hope is that introducing interim measures now will make the changes coming in or around 2025 less severe for builders and also go some way to cut carbon emissions in the meantime. While the FMB welcomes the interim changes, the new measures do nevertheless present another hurdle for SME housebuilders. Costs will inevitably go up and this will be passed on to the consumer, and as we know there isn’t much money in our
pockets at the moment, so how will the housing market fare?
WHAT NEXT FOR THE MARKET? You would have to be a brave person to make predictions for what may come later this year. The Bank of England predict a recession and the recent Offi ce for National Statistics (ONS) fi gures for March show GDP has declined, not increased, as predicted. From our own FMB State of Trade Survey for Q1 2022 we can see the market is ticking along, but there was still a lot of pent-up money post pandemic and the impact of the hardships of energy bill increases has yet to be fully felt. After many years of uncertainty, you would hope for some stability ahead, but I’m afraid we may be in for a diffi cult second half of the year. Let’s see if the Government can do something ambitious to keep the market going and ultimately keep momentum up on their fl agship policy of levelling up.
PUTTING LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN A COMMANDING POSITION WHEN IT COMES TO LAYING OUT LOCAL PLANS COULD BE TROUBLESOME
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