Housebuilding assumptions about to be tested again

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

Is what’s good for housebuilders still what’s good for housebuilding?

That headline was the assumption that underpinned policy through the 2010s: first in the elimination of ‘red tape’ and then in the creation of Help to Buy. But it’s one that has been severely shaken by the building safety and leasehold scandals.

But two announcements made in the last week could provide some important signals about how things will play out in future.

The relaxation of the rules on nutrient neutrality seems at first glance confirmation of the traditional assumption: housebuilders have long lobbied against what is effectively a block on the construction of new homes in many river catchment areas and now they seem to have got what they wanted.

And in this case they have a point: this is a real issue that affects housing associations and local authorities prevented from building affordable homes as well as developers developing homes for sale.

But the issue with polluted rivers and seas is equally real and it very much remains to be seen whether what is being spun as ‘using our Brexit freedoms’ can address both.

Visit the Wye Valley, for example, and you will find no new homes being built on the grounds they will add to nitrate pollution but around 20 million chickens being raised in enormous sheds that are a much bigger source of it.

This looks to be more about agriculture and the state of the water industry than it is about housebuilding, even though it’s hard to hear Michael Gove arguing that ‘the way EU rules are being applied has held us back’ without wondering why in that case virtually every other EU country builds more homes per head than we do.

The second announcement potentially has even profound implications for the future of housebuilding and housebuilders.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a housebuilding market study six months ago but on the Friday before the bank holiday it published an update that reveals the issues that will be its main focus.