UK construction and property
- Blockages | A group of civil servants will investigate 200 stalled housing developments. The team from the Ministry of Housing and Homes England—labelled the New Homes Accelerator—will examine sites with outline or detailed plans but have not begun construction. The 200 developments are expected to deliver up to 300,000 new homes.
- Housing starts | Data from the ONS shows that housing completions in the first quarter of 2024 were the lowest quarterly figure since Q1 2016. Just 38,400 homes were completed, equaling a 153,000 annual total, much lower than the 300,000 target. The British Property Federation has called on the Government to “supercharge” the build-to-rent sector.
- Post-Grenfell report | Ahead of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s final Grenfell Inquiry report next week, the Construction Leadership Council has issued a report explaining how the industry has changed since then. The full report is available here.
- Employee retention | The latest Employee Retention Report by equity management platform Vestd, has revealed that construction has one of the highest rates of employee retention in the UK, despite having an average tenure of 4.4 years.
- Retrofit | The London Borough of Haringey is to launch a retrofit scheme, having started a consultation period. The scheme will oversee an initial 200 homes retrofitted with energy-saving measures such as insulation and double glazing. The borough has ambitions to retrofit all of its 15,000 council homes.
- Skills | This year’s T-Level results show that construction-specific courses underperformed other courses with a pass rate of 80.4% and no distinctions. Women were very under-represented in the courses and take-up in London (where the skills shortage is acute) was very low.
