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Biggest Builders survey: associations to complete 40,000 homes but pandemic overshadows pipeline
The country’s top 50 developing housing associations built more than 40,000 homes in 2019/20, up roughly 7% on the previous year, Inside Housing’s exclusive survey has revealed.
The survey found that a total of 40,681 new homes were built in the the 2019/20 financial year, up from the 38,000 built during the same period last year.
Despite the uptick in homes built, completions were slowed and some pushed past the end of the financial year as a result of sites being temporarily shut down during the coronavirus pandemic.
This year’s top 50 Biggest Builders also reveals that the future pipeline of housing is being put under intense pressure by a combination of COVID-19, Brexit, and the costs of fire safety and decarbonisation work. Compared to last year, the top 50 Biggest Builders’ five-year pipeline has shrunk from about 250,000 homes to just 199,387.
Many large builders – including Clarion, L&Q, Notting Hill Genesis and Home Group – could provide no or limited pipeline data as a result, further underlining the extent of the uncertainty hanging over housing association development plans.
Places for People topped the league tables this year, building the most homes of any housing association in 2019/20 (2,680), and expecting to build the most this year as well (2,670).
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David Cowans, group chief executive at the 209,000-home association, said: “The government’s recent announcement that it is extending the Affordable Homes Programme by a further 12 months is welcomed as this enables us, and other Homes England strategic partners, time to review the impact COVID-19 has had on our delivery plans and on the market generally.”
L&Q had already paused new development in autumn last year, citing market conditions. Fiona Fletcher-Smith, group director of development and sales at the association, said that its sites are now up and running with social distancing measures in place.
“We’ll be at about 70% capacity when we’re fully up and running. It’s just a delay for us. In five years’ time we want to be starting 10,000 homes a year.”
But Dick Mortimer, executive director of development at Peabody, cautioned: “COVID isn’t going to stop being a problem tomorrow, or next month, or even next year. That could affect our costs of development and the number of units we build out.”
Find out which housing associations are in this year’s top 50
