As Scotland approaches the Holyrood elections on 7 May, the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) Scotland is urging all political parties to provide greater support for small and medium-sized (SME) housebuilders, or risk exacerbating the housing crisis.
The latest housing statistics show a 5% decline in new build starts compared to the previous year. More alarmingly is that excluding Covid impacted housebuilding in 2020, private sector starts are at their lowest since 2013. SME housebuilders are delivering 2,000 fewer homes per annum than prior to the 2008 financial crisis.
FMB Scotland Director Gordon Nelson said:
“Few would dispute that we have a housing crisis in Scotland, with estimates suggesting a shortfall of around 100,000 homes. This risks having a generation without their own homes. The plan to launch a new national housing agency to facilitate the accelerated delivery of new homes of all tenures in Scotland is welcome. However, the next Scottish Government must do more to support SME housebuilders who play a particularly strong role in developing new homes needed in rural locations and on the redevelopment of brownfield sites. Our increasingly complex planning system continues to thwart the ability of SME housebuilders to build small-scale developments of high quality energy efficient homes: their bread and butter. Planning and related regulations in Scotland need to be revamped to reduce the costs and complexity for small housebuilders.”
Nelson concluded:
“Wider action is also needed to support small homebuilders, including more equitable funding and finance to ease cashflow pressures. We need all parts of our housebuilding industry to be functioning if we are to address the housing crisis. We ignore SME housebuilders at our peril. This sector is more than willing to play its part but we must get supportive policies in place and put them into practice.”
FMB Scotland is calling on the next Scottish Government to:· Set an all tenure housing target of 25,000 homes per year· Deliver SME focused development management which is simple and takes a ‘build now pay later approach’ to planning and related fees.·
Invest in local authority planning services to help reduce lengthy planning delays which are a bane for housebuilders.· Work with the Scottish National Investment Bank to develop more equitable funding and finance for small housebuilders.