黑洞社区

Prime minister Theresa May is 鈥渧ery keen鈥� to see a wider range of organisations building new homes in the UK, according to housing minister Gavin Barwell.

Speaking to 黑洞社区 at the Mipim UK conference in London, Barwell added that the government wants to see not just SMEs building more homes, but also 鈥渃ompletely new entrants to the market鈥�.

鈥淚f you look at our country compared to other countries there鈥檚 this huge disparity in terms of the extent to which our industry is dominated by a small number of large players,鈥� he said.

鈥淭hey do an important job and I want them to carry on what they鈥檙e doing, but they鈥檙e quite honest that they on their own are not going to deliver the number of homes that we need.鈥�

Earlier during a panel debate, Barwell commented: 鈥淢ajor housebuilders are only going to build out at the rate that they think the market will absorb it and the lesson to me there is what you want, as much as possible, is to have a mixture of different people building out large sites and a mixture of different tenures because all the evidence shows that that is going to lead to a much faster build out rate.

鈥淎lso I feel very strongly that if as the minister I listen to all the concerns that the major housebuilders have and if there is evidence behind them and I address them I think I have a right to go back to them and say I鈥檝e done all those things, now you need to raise your game,鈥� he added.

Barwell said infrastructure schemes such as HS2 are 鈥渉ugely important鈥�, but smaller projects like the new rail spur to Barking Riverside in London play a major part in unlocking sites that 鈥渨ouldn鈥檛 be viable鈥� otherwise.

However, he admitted that 鈥渆veryone acknowledges it鈥檚 taken us too long as a country sometimes to settle some of these issues鈥�.

Barwell said he was hopeful the National Infrastructure Commission would succeed even without statutory independence to ensure that 鈥渨e never get stuck in five year timetable of politics and elections鈥�.

Barwell also said changes had been made as recently as last night to the proposed planning and housing bill. The amendments will give him power to intervene and mandate councils to work together to produce a compliant plan for the area as the duty to cooperate had not worked well in certain parts of the country, Barwell admitted.

He added he was trying in his forthcoming white paper on boosting housing supply to try and set out a 鈥渃oherent overall strategy鈥� to give long-term certainty of policy.