New partnership to support housebuilding sector

With a backlog of almost half a million homes across England still waiting to be built despite receiving planning consent partly because of a construction skills shortage in the housebuilding industry, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Home Builders Federation (HBF) have teamed up to form a major new partnership to help tackle the housing skill needs. More than 45,000 new homebuilding workers will be trained by 2019 to help tackle the nation’s housing shortage through the Home Building Skills Partnership – a £2.7 million training initiative designed to help boost the supply of new build homes. The shortage of skilled labour in the housebuilding sector is pushing up the price of hiring tradesmen. The financial crash of 2007-08 bears some of the blame as it led to thousands of people leaving the construction industry. Now that demand has returned, there is a skills shortage, with bricklayers, carpenters and joiners in short supply. Brian Berry, Chief Executive, FMB, said, “We’re already seeing housing developments starting to stall because the cost of hiring skilled tradespeople is threatening to make some sites simply unviable. Unless we see a massive uplift in apprenticeship training in our industry, there won’t be enough pairs…