SME House Builders Can Help Tackle the Housing Crisis, says FMB

THURSDAY 17th MAY 2012 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The 11% fall in house building starts in England since the end of last year demonstrates the seriousness of the current housing crisis and the need for the Government to do more to enable small house builders help solve the problem, says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), the UK's largest trade association in the building industry.

Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB said:
“Today’s government housing figures show that we are still nowhere near delivering the quantity of housing we need to help solve the need for affordable homes. If the Government is serious about dealing with the housing crisis it is going to have to take bold and decisive action to get small house builders back into the market.”

Berry continued:
“In the past when we were delivering housing in significant quantities the smaller house builders provided around two thirds of annual output, but thanks to the ever increasing burden on the house building industry, and the much higher costs associated with building homes on small and micro sites, this has fallen to just a third and the number of smaller house builders has fallen by around 69%.”

Berry concluded:
“SME house builders are essential to increasing build rates but very difficult to reach even with targeted programmes such as the Government’s ‘Get Britain Building’ and ‘NewBuy’. The Government needs to use its position to increase the supply of business and mortgage finance to the sector; demonstrate leadership on making the case for communities to accept new housing; and prioritize increasing the supply of housing over the introduction of additional red tape on the sector. Sadly, the housing crisis has been a long time in the making but now requires decisive action.”