Theresa May has held a crucial housing summit at 10 Downing Street. Large and small housing developers, housing associations and local government representative were all asked to attend the high-level meeting.
The purpose of the talks was to discuss how to achieve a step change in the delivery of new homes in advance of the Autumn Budget.
Representatives from the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Local Government Association (LGA), the National Housing Federation, and the Home Builders Federation were among the attendees. The bosses of Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey were also at the meeting alongside attendees with an interest in offsite prefabricated housing and buy-to-rent experts.
Commenting on the meeting, a government spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister emphasised the government’s ambition to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing our country today – fixing the broken housing market. For too many people, home ownership has moved increasingly out of reach, and people are finding themselves spending longer in insecure private rented accommodation that is becoming ever more expensive.”
At the meeting, the Prime Minister (PM) outlined her plans to increase housing supply and challenged developers, local authorities and housing associations to step up and play their part. Attendees also had an opportunity to set out their ideas. The meeting lasted 75 minutes.
Commenting on the meeting, Chair of the G15 group of housing associations, Paul Hackett said: “Today’s opportunity for leaders from across the industry to sit down with the PM, the secretary of state and housing minister to share ideas on how we can increase supply felt like a very important milestone.”
Other issues discussed at the meeting included making the most of modern methods of construction, ensuring a skilled workforce and ensuring planning permissions granted by councils were delivered into new homes.
Number 10 has said that it was “a positive and collaborative meeting which needs to signal a step change in house building if we are to build a country that truly works for everyone”.
