* Business
* Construction industry
New homes slump worst since 1945
100,000 construction jobs expected to go this year
* Nick Mathiason, business Correspondent
* The Observer,
* Sunday June 15 2008
* Article history
The number of homes built in Britain this year will plunge to its
lowest level since 1945 and plummeting construction activity is
expected to lead to the loss of 100,000 jobs. The country's most
senior housebuilders confirm that completions will be around 100,000,
some 70,000 less than last year.
The dramatic collapse will shred any hopes Gordon Brown may have had
for a rapid acceleration in housebuilding, which was to have been a
central plank of his premiership. Brown wants 240,000 homes built each
year to house the 3 million new households expected by 2018.
Mark Clare, chief executive of crisis-hit developer Barratt, said:
'The small guys have pulled out and the big companies ... are not
opening new developments. I think it certainly will be around 100,000,
and if there's a further deterioration, it will go under 100,000.'
Alan Cherry, chairman of Countryside Properties, added that affordable
homes built as part of planning agreements by volume builders would be
reduced significantly as firms move to protect margins. Quoted
housebuilders have seen dramatic falls in their share prices in the
past month, wiping billions off their value as banks withhold home
loans.
The fall in new homes comes as Labour MPs, led by Clive Betts, look
set to block fundamental reform of the planning system. A Commons vote
tomorrow week to create an independent planning commission that would
fast-track major new infrastructure facilities has attracted mounting
opposition among backbenchers. They fear that a new, un-elected quango
will be undemocratic and create another level of bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, housing minister Caroline Flint told a meeting of housing
experts last Thursday that she was working on plans to fast-track the
release of huge swathes of public land to housing associations.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government
said: 'There is a long-term fundamental mismatch between supply and
demand... It is therefore essential for housebuilders to base their
decisions on the economic fundamentals and longer-term trends.
Builders need to ensure they are in the right place when the market
picks up.'
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p1 of the Business news & features section. It was last updated at
00:08 on June 15 2008.
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