Government is not reaching its housebuilding targets

The Government’s target of building 1 million new homes over this is unlikely to be met. Less than 460,000 homes were built between 2011 and 2014, according to figures from the National Housing Federation, despite forecasts that 974,000 new homes were needed. This contributed to the significant shortfall or residential properties across the country, prompting the Government to increase its housebuilding target to 1 million by 2020, including more Starter Homes and shared ownership properties. However, despite efforts by the Government to encourage more housebuilding, the latest PMI data for the manufacturing industry shows that the residential housing sector in Q1 2016 actually recorded the weakest pace of growth since January 2013. Tim Moore, Senior Economist at Markit, said, “Residential building has seen the greatest loss of momentum through the first quarter of 2016, which is a surprising reversal of fortunes given strong market fundamentals and its clear outperformance over the past three years.” Last week, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Home Builders Federation (HBF) announced a major new partnership to help tackle the housing skill needs in the construction industry by creating long-term skills solutions to meet the Government’s target of 1 million new homes by 2020.…