Keeping Positive

Some interesting statistics this month about new home building, and its effect on the economy, and indeed the wider environment, writes Tony Abel.  It all puts a very different complexion on the negativity which is sometimes projected onto the construction sector.

Let’s start with the straight facts: in 2015, 143,560 new homes were built in England; that’s a 21 per cent increase on the previous year, although still well short of the government’s target of 200,000 new homes per year.

You might think that this boost in new homes is down to housing associations increasing their development programmes but that is not so, in fact both those sectors actually saw falls in the number of new homes completed.  It was the often unfairly maligned private sector which constructed 119,210 of those new homes - six in every seven.

Not only is this activity helping meet the crying need for more homes in Britain, but it is also contributing vastly to the economy, the environment, and society as a whole.  Another set of figures, this time for Norfolk, showed that in 2014, 2,300 new homes were started, of which 536 were affordable homes (many of which were also built by the private sector).

This activity directly supported over 10,000 jobs in the county, and led to over £23.3 million of tax being paid locally.  In addition, we house builders contributed £3,7 million towards education in the county, and planted over 100,000 trees.

What’s more, the new homes we are building are energy-efficient, which is helping to reduce the average carbon footprint of the county’s homes.

I know that there are those who think we should stop building new homes completely!  That is an easy position to take if you are already in a home which you can afford, but the argument cuts rather less ice when you look at it from the point of view of the many people who are struggling to find somewhere to live, or who are being priced out of even a basic home by the mismatch between supply and demand.

The new homes that house builders are creating are useful both economically and socially.  They are contributing to the prosperity and the social cohesion of our county, and given the lack of public sector funding for new homes, the good health of the private sector house building industry is vital.

This kind of positive position is easily upset.  The enemy of long-term investment is uncertainty, and unfortunately there are several areas of doubt on the horizon, including the EU referendum (and let’s face it, no-one really knows what the consequences of a Brexit would be) and the new stamp duty regime which is expected to come into effect in April.

So a plea to Mr Osborne in his Budget in a couple of weeks: please don’t interfere with the housing market.  Just let us get on building the homes Britain needs, and creating the jobs and investment which will help the whole country achieve prosperity.