Building lots of new homes in a hurry carries risks. Taking advice from the wrong ‘experts’ increases the risks. Building 1.5 million attractive, sustainable new homes in one parliament is not possible.
Which matters more? Lots of new boxes built in the suburbs regardless of location, quality and local support …. but fast? Or getting spatial policy and local support in place first of all? My view is the latter. It seems the government’s is the former! Can they see the gem being thrown away?
Rightly the government is the trying hard to fire up initiatives to build lots of new homes. But in my opinion are going about it the wrong way. New attempts to build are welcome and overdue.. England desperately needs this important switch of policy. .But done wrong, expect problems, disappointment and derision from angry councils. Ministerial initiatives suggest the policy focus is delivering 1.5 million new homes by the time the next election is due in July 2029, suggesting it is the sole objective. This outcome cannot happen without local support. Instead the government needs to be laying the foundations of tomorrow’s Belgravia in London, the Cresent in Bath and medium high density in Milan. What a shame! Understandable but so short sighted. Why is this? Well, look at their choice of so-called experts and their priorities!
Take for example Barrett the housebuilders and Lloyds Bank. They have formed a new partnership with Homes England, the government house building agents.Their objective is to plan at scale, ie. big house building projects. As an objective it is sound. But where is the generational, historic expertise? Where is the evidence of long term premium value creation? Where is the community agenda? Where is the spatial master plan? Housing Minister Pennycook says ‘The landmark new partnership announced today will support our commitment to ramp up housing supply and boost economic growth by developing more large-scale, attractive and sustainable places across the country.’. Starting from scratch one government cannot deliver ‘attractive’ or ‘sustainable’ in five years, using builders whose priority is profit, not place. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not correct. . But in one parliament the government might be able to change mind-sets; might be able to identify the growth locations; might be able to achieve credible political local alliances; and might be able to assemble and train local council leaders in estate management skills whose priority is place not profit; all in the five year time available to start the process of change. But at least the government are trying. That itself is a big step forward. But simply it is not enough.
Other well intentioned initiatives are task forces to drive growth around Cambridge and teams of experts lead by Sir Michael Lyons to find sites for new towns.These initiatives look more sound. Of course the big builders are happy bunnies in any event. . The new Pennycook vehicle, called Made Partnership will be chaired by Barrett’s group major projects director. Is this choice appropriate? It seems the idea is a new concept called master developers who will locate land for large scale development. Is it possible some of it will be located on their strategic land holdings. If so, will this be a conflict of interest? No mention of the recognised spatial experts in this specialty are masterplanners. Some decades ago I came across one master developer in my time advising on development. They were not builder traders, but long term institutional investors with generational measured financial responsibilities. The long term versus short term distinction matters a great deal. Builder traders mind-set is rightly different. Their priority is annual trading profit, a fundamentally different and unhelpful mindset if your objective is long term sustainable housing policy delivery.
Cynics might wonder. Does Mr Pennycook and the PM understand the difference? If so why are they choosing trader builders firms as partners? Not sure?
We know what trader builder Vistry boss wants. Billions of pounds in funding to reach targets says the Daily Telegraph (Melissa Lawford, 6 September 2024).. Greg Fitzgerald, the Vistry chief executive adds, ‘Our strategic land bank is more green belt and grey belt than brownfield land. We feel quite confident today, with the numbers that the Government is looking to (build), that an awful lot more of that will come through than would have done under the previous government.. ……….. I absolutely see there is a sea change. We have seen a couple of strategic land wins come through where we have been surprised on the upside, which has been very rare over the last five or six years’. Candid words from a commercial trader builder. Do you need this sort of short term trader builder mind-set when planning sustainable long term communities? Or do you need long term institutional investors or landed estate investors with a track record of adding value? Their mind-sets will be led by generational aspirations. And do you start with haphazard land banks, or instead start where local communities want the new homes to go? Or start by asking spatial experts to recommend where it is, and is not right to build?
The scale of the new government’s choice of partner is confusing. . On some evidence very worrying. The reasons for their choices need to be understood. Customers of another trader builder have severe doubts about their builders skills simply as builders, let alone as master developers. BBC Investigations, Cambridge reporter Jon Ironmonger (28 August 2024) reports on customer views about Bellway Homes. Homeowners at Bassingbourn Fields, at Fordham, Cambridgeshire built by Bellway are forthright in their views.. One homeowner told Mr Ironmonger that ‘We call it Hellway’. One resident said ‘We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here’. The report highlights that Bellway Homes are not small builders, having won Large House Builder of the year 2023.
My concern is the government are poorly advised by turning to trader builders to achieve their home building ambitions. Some of whom even fail as builders. So why should they succeed as long term investors or as master developers? After all the brochure for Bassingbourn Fields says ‘Our impeccable attention to detail is at the forefront of our building process’. In fairness Bellway Homes acknowledge the situation saying it is ‘aware of the defects of the site ………….apologise to homeowners who may not have received the service expected’. It seems the government is seeking advice from the wrong sources with the wrong expertise, with the wrong, short term commercial objectives. Local councils, once they have access to master plan skills, should be taking back responsibility for these spatial and land assembly roles. These skills are the essence of civic responsibility. Good policy starts with good foundations.
Please Minister go and talk to the right people. You are in a hurry, we know. Talk to those whose historic track record is creating premium values by planning generations ahead and not only to those whose legitimate but unhelpful short term commercial objective is to sell their land stocks at full development value to ill-informed public bodies. At least then you will have a measure of the opportunity for high quality change you are abandoning.
Ian Campbell
12 September 2024.
