McCloud right to say housing market broken

Dave Ellis, Magdalen Lane, Hedon.

I totally agree with presenter of Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud, when he says that the housing marketis broke nor as I would put it, has ‘cracks’ in it’s foundations (The YP, April 15).

We have had various Housing Ministers in this Tory government, under four recent past Prime Ministers.

Liz Truss’s financial strategy in just 49 days sent interest rate rises into ‘orbit’ virtually overnight, by spooking the British financial sector. These increased interest rates on artificially low mortgages for years obviously affected many families’ pockets.

This timing with the fallout of Brexit, leading to a shortage of skilled labour, especially in the construction industry, and add into the ‘cake’ the pandemic has led to a hard flat-bottom housing market. In fairness the Housing Minister under Boris Johnson wouldn’t have a clue in which direction to go, as this depended on which special adviser Boris listened to, before he ‘flipped’ 360 degrees.

I accept that all these ingredients added to the ‘mortar or concrete mix’ in a relatively short space of time which has led to a rocky foundation in the housebuilding sector and would set challenges for any experienced Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Many of those Ministers in high office have the advantage of being educated at either Oxford or Cambridge universities, or been to Harvard University in the US, so their expensive and exclusive training should have prepared them for many scenarios in life. But they have failed the electorate.

There is light on the horizon as Chancellor of the Exchequer in waiting, Rachel Reeves, MP for Leeds Central, has been to America and studied what they are doing across the big pond, and she should kick start the housing market again, if Rachel and Sir Keir Starmer can review the outdated planning and building control systems which we currently have to this day.

I am sure that if the Victorian and Edwardian builders had to work to the current planning regulations, our towns and cities would now be a lot smaller and the housing crisis would be even greater.

Another good point Kevin McCloud has brought into daylight is the dominance of four main housebuilders. Force these big four companies to reduce the amount of land banking.

This government, and indeed future Labour governments, need to put into place incentives for the building sector to prosper and make it easier for middle and small-scale builders (in this order) to be successful by helping with funding of attractive loans and training of staff, with advanced construction apprenticeships learnt on the job, whereby those who are good and committed can reap the rewards and succeed by having a job and career path.

In my opinion, we need more building co-operatives based in local communities, whereby building of houses on public-owned land can be achieved to a high sustainable standard.

I believe that this will be achieved whilst we have the ‘bank’ of skilled construction workers, from bricklayers, joiners, plumbers, plasterers and landscapers, the list goes on, who can pass on their skills before it is too late.