The government has made a strong commitment to increase growth and build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years. These pledges go hand-in-hand with a healthy homebuilding industry and sustained economic success.

As a specialist in brownfield regeneration projects, we know how hard it’s become to bring forward complex sites. Ministers’ early focus on planning reform is extremely welcome, and we hope that measures such as brownfield passports and the new homes accelerator will help to unlock sites and enable delivery.

Rethinking our skills system is also key to increasing the delivery of homes. The government clearly sees the value of ‘skills’ as a springboard to growth – the launch of Skills England is a promising sign, and the recent industrial strategy green paper highlighted skills shortages as one of the obstacles to future growth.