10 October 2008
Surveyors have dealt another blow to the government's housing targets after reporting the worst-ever quarterly results for house building.
By the end of September, just 66,220 homes had been built in 2008. With fewer than 25,000 likely to be completed during the final quarter, the total will fall well below 100,000, said the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
The RICS's latest quarterly survey shows the worst set of results since it began analysing the market on a three-monthly basis in 1994.
Housebuilding by public sector bodies fell for the first time since 2001. To reach its target of 2 million new homes by 2016 and 3 million by 2020, the government requires more than 200,000 homes to be built annually. RICS senior economist Oliver Gilmartin said it was likely to fall 'well short' of the 2016 target.
'The effect of the credit crunch is increasing as large public projects also come under financial pressure, with the very real possibility that core projects will struggle to obtain the necessary funding and may have to be either delayed or scaled back,' he added.
Meanwhile, a study carried out for the Department for Communities and Local Government showed that the extra costs might deter housebuilders from providing eco-friendly homes. By 2016, the additional bill for meeting low or zero-carbon standards would be between 17% and 24%, it estimated.
But the independent study, published on October 6, suggests that costs will then fall as low-carbon technology becomes more common.
PFoct2008
