Delivering the homes that the UK desperately needs

The Industry Forum held a brilliant roundtable on the crucial topic of ‘Delivering the homes that the UK desperately needs.’ Florence Eshalomi MP, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee, introduced the topic and led a wide-ranging discussion at the City office of NHBC. Kim Bromley, General Counsel and Director of Government & External Affairs at NHBC welcomed guests including insurance specialists, house builders, architects, planning lawyers, trade associations and others. Everyone present recognised the urgent need for more homes and the enormous task the government has set itself to build 1.5m new houses in the current term. An additional critical current problem is the cost and social damage being caused by the large number of children in temporary accommodation. Some of the other issues discussed included the skills shortage, the mismatch between infrastructure delivery and new housing developments, unintended consequences of net zero targets, and the critical need for HM Treasury to balance short term investment costs with the associated longer term benefits. There was some feeling that the government still needs to improve cross-departmental cooperation for its major missions like housing - an agenda item for Darren Jones MP, Chief Secretary to the PM, perhaps? We couldn’t solve all the problems of UK housing in one meeting and will be holding further meetings on the key obstacles and bottlenecks that need to be overcome by government and industry working together.