Top consultant welcomes new housing plans but says more support needed

Leading consultancy AECOM has welcomed the news that the government will directly commission the building of homes on publicly owned land but says support will be needed to enable builders to increase capacity to deliver them.

Andy Walker
06 January 2016

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Speaking to Infrastructure Intelligence, Andrew Jones, practice leader (Design, Planning & Economics) at AECOM, said: “Opening up the market to new entrants and smaller house builders is a positive move that should stimulate growth and increase capacity. However, this market segment has contracted and been absorbed into larger players, so some support will be necessary so that smaller house builders can develop the capacity to deliver quickly and in line with demand, and that appropriate controls are applied to ensure quality of product.  

Jones saw some issues ahead with the government’s plans to build 13,000 new homes. “Breaking up larger public land sites and making them available to smaller developers is not without challenges,” he said. “These sites are often complex and typically in need of decontamination, flood alleviation measures or major infrastructure upgrades to bring them forward as part of existing communities or at the heart of new communities.”  

Jones continued: “These schemes typically require an overseeing master planner, such as a public agency or a development company. Small house builders are unlikely to be able to bring forward these types of sites independently, as the required infrastructure investment is likely to be unaffordable for them. As a result schemes could emerge in an unplanned manner, which would ultimately slow delivery or reduce the quality of the proposed community development – the very opposite of the government’s intention,” he claimed.

The solution to addressing the housing shortage quickly and sustainably, said Jones, lies beyond building just for home ownership. “We would like to see initiatives to facilitate a broad range of new entrants to the market to bring forward housing, including smaller players, local authorities and housing associations for social housing and shared ownership, and institutional investors for a diversified private rental sector. These players are perhaps better able to try out innovative approaches such as self-build, custom-build and manufactured homes. A robust supply chain and an assessment of the capacity of the trade crafts required to support this growth are also essential to successful delivery,” he said.

While he welcomed the government’s announcement to fast-track building houses on public land, Jones was keen to stress that the bigger infrastructure picture. “Tackling small-scale developments and brownfield sites risks tinkering at the edges of the housing crisis,” said Jones. “The focus must remain on large-scale developments that are supported by high-quality transport and social infrastructure.”