Builders ‘sit on 400k unused plots’

THERESA May will today demand that developers build homes on the land they own amid figures showing the ten biggest companies are sitting on more than 400,000 unused plots.

The Prime Minister will hold a summit with housebuilders at Downing Street to challenge them to build more homes.

She is expected to raise the controversial practice of ‘landbanking’, in which private companies sit on plots that have been granted planning permission without building anything on them.

A Government source said Mrs May would be ‘laying down a challenge’ to developers in a ‘robust but constructive way’. She will hold also discussions on how to tackle the housing crisis with developers, councils and housing associations.

The ten biggest developers – including companies such as Countryside and Taylor Wimpey – have more than 400,000 plots earmarked for development, according to housing charity Shelter.

This represents more than six years’ worth of housebuilding, it said.

Shelter also estimated that the companies have 481,910 plots in their strategic land bank, land held by them and other organisations in the expectation they will get planning permission.

Mrs May has put housing at the centre of her strategy to win over the younger generation, who are struggling to get on to the property ladder. She vowed to fix the ‘broken housing market’ in her conference speech this year, by building more houses, investing in the Help to Buy scheme, and ensuring councils release land.

The House Building Federation denies that developers holding on to land while it rises in value.

Steve Turner of the HBF said: ‘As the industry looks to increase output, it needs a supply of land. Builders do not make money from sitting on land.’

The last study by the Local Government Association found there were nearly 500,000 plots which had planning permission but had not been built on.