The government should go beyond its 1.5 million new homes target and aim for four million units within the next decade, the co-chair of the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has told MPs.
Mark Reynolds made the suggestion during a Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee evidence session with industry experts on construction’s capacity to meet the government’s homebuilding target.
“I think we certainly should start [building] 1.5 million [homes] in this government term”, Reynolds, who’s also executive chair at Mace, told the panel of MPs when asked if the target is achievable. “Realistically, we should be setting higher targets of 4m [new homes] in the next 10 years.
“I think that is eminently achievable.”
Reynolds said that lack of skills is not the “fundamental issue” hindering the government’s homebuilding ambitions, noting that the industry employs around 2.2-2.3 million people and grew by 60,000 in 2024.
“We think that the industry has the capacity to flex very quickly and grow to meet the demand,” he said.
Instead, Reynolds pointed to a combination of barriers within the system as the main difficulty.
“I don’t think skills is the issue,” Reynolds said. “It’s not just planning. There’s nutrient neutrality that needs to be resolved, and also compliance with the Building Safety Act. The Building Safety Regulator [BSR] needs more resources. Industry needs to step up and understand and comply with those issues. The biggest challenge once you remove those blockers will be affordability, that is still a huge challenge.”
BSR delays
Reynolds also highlighted the current delays in obtaining Gateway 2 approval from the Building Safety Regulator. Although sign off should take 12 weeks for a new higher-risk building project and eight weeks for work on an existing higher-risk building, Reynolds said the approval is taking double that time.
“It’s taking 24 to 28 weeks and some are taking up to 40 to 48 [weeks],” Reynolds said. “People are being laid off, people are losing their jobs over this.”
Reynolds added that CLC is working with the BSR, including setting up a task group to improve their processes.
“[The BSR] is a new organisation,” Reynolds said. “So first of all, have sympathy with Philip [White, who’s leading the BSR] and his team because it’s a new organisation. It’s got a new computer system, it’s got to go through new regulations, and the industry doesn’t quite understand what it should be doing.
He added: “There is a learning process. What we need to do is get the guidance through for the industry and the industry needs to learn that guidance, and we need to help. We need more multidisciplinary teams to be appointed more quickly.”
