Developers seek social respite

A snap survey of developers who are already Housing Corporation partners revealed the majority are looking to increase their social and affordable housing output.

Big players such as Barratt, Bellway, Bovis and Persimmon have all increased their stake in the affordable housing market this year.

Social housing made up 27 per cent of Bovis Homes’ housing completions in the first six months of 2008 – compared to 13 per cent over the same period in 2007. Persimmon built 27 per cent more social housing in the same period.

Kier echoed this trend in its trading update last week, which said: ‘We will run a smaller, leaner operation in the future, with our focus shifting towards affordable housing and regeneration.’

In McInerney’s annual general meeting statement in May, the house builder said: ‘Our immediate objective is to seek growth from our affordable and social housing operations. This area of our business is performing strongly.’

Some builders specialising in affordable housing projects have so far weathered the storm, with no redundancies at Wates Living Space, Dunelm Property Services or Lovell. Ian Burnett, managing director of Wates, said: ‘Sales [in general] have just dropped away completely. We have not been too affected… we do a lot of new build but direct for housing associations.’

A spokesperson for the Home Builders’ Federation said developers had spare capacity because of the credit crunch. ‘It seems a mutually beneficial move to work with associations and the corporation to deliver [social housing],’ he said.

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