An urgent need for a full house of solutions

As the UK settles into a new Labour Government, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faces a bulging inbox filled with key pre-election pledges that need urgent attention. Housing and immigration top the list of priorities for the new administration. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was quick off the mark with her first speech addressing the need to tackle the housing crisis. She is keen to get ‘Britain building again’ and has placed a reform of the national planning policy framework at the forefront of her plans. Last year, 212,570 new homes were completed in the UK; Reeves aspires to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, a total not achieved since the 1960s. This ambition is especially challenging when considering the perspectives of some of the UK’s leading housebuilders. Barratt Developments, the UK’s biggest housebuilder by volume, has just announced its target for new homes next year will fall by 7%, to 13,000 from 14,004.

Housebuilders are facing the same pressures as many in the construction industry: rising raw material prices, material availability, and labour shortages. Interestingly, in the past, housebuilders have pleaded with the government to relax, and even scrap, low-carbon standards to help reduce the cost of building new homes. This shift would place the responsibility on homeowners to upgrade their homes to meet future requirements. From a business perspective, this is not entirely bad news for the home improvement sector. For the replacement window and door sector, it’s beneficial when new houses have basic and inferior fenestration products, as it opens up the market for upgrades with replacement windows and doors.

Relaxing planning rules for developments is one thing, and the plan to create 300 additional planning officers is a small step in the right direction. However, there is a desperate need to free up planning for smaller-scale projects. The amount of email exchanges and delays for simple projects is staggering across many councils. Trying to get certain authorities to approve the replacement of old, rotten windows in conservation areas with sympathetically designed superior flush sash PVC-U windows remains a headache for many.

The labour market also requires urgent attention. Conversations with many trades reveal that they all suffer from the same problems: fitters on site and factory staff are in short supply. In some regions, warehouse staff are being paid close to £30K a year, highlighting the scale of the problem. Many in the workforce are primarily interested in earning enough to survive and are not too concerned about the nature of their work, making clean warehouse jobs appealing. This brings us to the topic of immigration. Does an economic migrant entering the UK plan to work in a factory making windows or out on-site fitting frames? Probably not. Are they capable of performing these jobs with some training? Probably yes. It is a balancing act, but if people are willing to travel to the UK to work, we should allow them to join the workforce. Additionally, it is important to make these opportunities available to UK residents, both young and old. Training is key, and it is important for the government to support and fund training schemes. Businesses also need to be proactive, and it was interesting to see how Future Products teamed up with the Department of Work and Pensions to recruit two manufacturing production operatives recently. The message is that being proactive is the best way to attract new workers, and organisations like Building Our Skills are working hard at this as well. Much responsibility still lies with the government, which needs a well-planned and thought-out strategy for linking immigration to the labour shortage in construction-related markets. A solution will make the government’s plans to build new homes and improve existing properties much easier to achieve. The good news is that the new government appears to have placed housing at the centre of its agenda.

John Cowie – Editor