Speaking at the National Property Showcase in London this morning, director of external affairs, Slaughter said the recession is not the only obstacle to house building.
“The problems for first time buyers have been growing for 10 years, although the downturn has exacerbated the situation. We have a mountain to climb in terms of getting to where we need to be.
“At the peak we were seeing 45% of new builds being flats and apartments. Now the product mix has changed to access other parts of the market. The demand for housing has shifted back to detached family homes.”
Slaughter said government figures regarding available brownfield sites were unreliable, but praised its decision to start several ‘substantial’ housebuilding programmes.
“New national policy framework will be critical. The current government sees housebuilding as critical to the economic and jobs recovery. The planning system needs to do more than just brownfield, they must deliver suitable greenfield sites as well.
“The ambition for the NewBuy scheme is up to 100,000 transactions, which is quite significant. There are some issues and it has not been fully rolled out yet but we are confident it will help us get where we want to be.”
