Vaccine Will Be A Shot In the Arm To Reverse New Builds Slump

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Homes England says the vaccine will reverse a year-on-year drop of 56 per cent in the volume of homes started for market sale since the start of lockdown 1.

The government's housing accelerator reported just 2,416 houses were started from April to the end of September compared with 5,052 in the previous year. The number of houses completed decreased by 20 per cent to 3,746 compared with 4,690 for the same period in 2019.

 “As anticipated, Covid-19 had a significant impact on the construction industry in the first half of this year. We can but hope that the rollout of the vaccine programme will help the country get back to building.”

– Nick Walkley 

Chief Executive, Homes England

Funding

"Homes England has been working closely with delivery partners and colleagues in government to support the sector to build back its capacity," continued Homes England's Walkley. "However, £12 billion of funding through the affordable homes programme will give confidence to the sector to support delivery over the next five years.

"By working with our strategic partners and the wider sector, we can ensure that the £7.5 billion allocation Homes England received, along with the additional funding announced in the recent spending review, helps to stimulate the sector and ultimately gives our delivery partners the confidence they need to invest in new homes."

The future looks positive

Brokers Hank Zarihs Associates said development finance lenders supported this positive outlook and were optimistic about new build volumes for the second half of 2021. Brokers Hank Zarihs Associates told TheInstaller.pro & TheFabricator.pro that overall, there were 11,313 new houses started on-site and 11,358 homes completed between 1 April and 30 September 2020. Starts on-site were down by 38 per cent and completions were down 25 per cent, compared with the same period last year. Affordable housing - social rent, shared ownership, discounted and starter homes - accounted for 79 per cent of the total new starts in this period.

Picture: The Covid vaccine could be the shot in the arm house building needs to get going again.

Article written by Cathryn Ellis
06th January 2021

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