NFB labels Hammond's housing plans 'a sticking plaster on a gaping wound'

The National Federation of Builders has described the chancellor of the exchequer’s strategy for solving the UK’s housing crisis as laid out in yesterday’s Spring Statement as applying “a sticking plaster to a gaping wound”.

Philip Hammond outlined plans for a new £3bn affordable homes guarantee scheme, but the NFB said it was “unconvinced” by the announcement.

The NFB’s chief executive Richard Beresford said that as the 2020 deadline loomed by which the government has pledged to build a million homes, including 200,000 starter homes, it was becoming increasingly clear both targets would be missed.

“Firstly, those figures make no economic sense. If the government, its agencies, such as Homes England, and planners had been developing sustainable relationships with lower volume housebuilders to deliver the numbers of homes we need, it would not be in a last-minute panic.”

[The government’s] figures make no economic sense

Richard Beresford, NFB 

And Beresford argued a stumbling block to ramp up demand for – and the provision of – affordable housing remained the cost. “As long as the cost of affordable housing is set in legislation at £450,000, it will continue to remain unaffordable,” he said.

Alongside the NFB’s concerns, the House Builders Association (HBA), the NFB’s housebuilding division, said it was concerned about the chancellor’s announcement that developers would be compulsorily required to show biodiversity net gain for schemes across England.

Hammond said he was commissioning a review into biodiversity, to report next year.

Rico Wojtulewicz, the HBA’s head of housing and planning policy, said: “With biodiversity net gain in its infancy and the consultation barely completed, there is a real danger that mandating it, without thinking about its real-world consequences, makes it a tax and not a positive outcome for the environment.

“For that reason, it is a serious concern that a timeline for implementation has already been set.”