In AMI’s Quarterly Economic Bulletin, Chris Cummings, director-general of AMI, said that the target of building 240,000 new homes per year could prove too ambitious to meet unless there was significant reform of planning legislation to reduce the power of local authorities.
Cummings said: “Presently the UK is managing to construct around 160,000 new homes, some way below the growth in households of around 200,000 per annum. In addition, many of the planned areas of expansion are on flood plains. For example, 160,000 new homes are planned to be built on the Thames gateway by 2016. With weather patterns becoming less predictable and sea levels rising, damage to properties that are vulnerable to flooding will become a growing problem. If this affects demand for properties in these areas, halts in development will mean building targets will not be met.”
Ashley Clark, director of Need An Adviser.com, said: “The arguments Cummings has presented are very logical and I certainly agree that tradesmen will be dragged away to work on areas affected by floods and be funded by private companies. That will be much more attractive than a low-cost government sponsored scheme.
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“My experience of most government departments is they are an utter shambles, run by people who don’t know what they are doing. I fully anticipate the government low-cost building scheme to fall flat on its face – not because I want it to, as I’d genuinely like it to succeed, but because of my experience.”
