Only 12% of surveyors think Government target of 300,000 new homes will be hit

Ministers say they will build 300,000 new homes a year, considerably up on the current build rate and more than in any year since the 1960s

Official statistics show that new build starts were 166,100 in the year to September 2017 (Reuters)

Only 12 per cent of chartered surveyors think the Government will hit its ambitious new housing construction targets.

Ministers say they will build 300,000 new homes a year, considerably up on the current build rate and more than in any year since the 1960s.

But a survey for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) found that only 12 per cent of members expressed any confidence in such volumes of new homes being delivered. The rest were lacking in confidence or unsure.

“It’s clear more radical action is needed,” said Lewis Johnston, RICS’s Parliamentary Affairs Manager.

“As we said at the time of the Autumn Budget, the smorgasbord of policies set out by the Chancellor did not amount to the fundamental step-change we need to really shift the dial on housing.”

“In addition to the partial lifting of the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap, councils should also be given the tools they need to build, including more access to funding and a pipeline of suitable land.”

The Treasury Select Committee also recently called on the Government to lift the cap on local authority borrowing in order to allow councils to start building social housing in serious volumes once again, something that largely ended in the 1980s.

Official statistics show that total annual new housing build starts were 166,100 in the year to September 2017.

Starts slumped to less than 80,000 in the 2008-09 recession.

However, other official data shows that net additional dwellings (which includes existing houses carved up into smaller flats and offices converted into residencies) grew by 217,350 in 2016-17, putting the Government’s target somewhat closer than implied by the raw construction start figures.

The building industry has been warning about the negative impact of Brexit on the availability of skilled construction workers.

A separate survey by RICS last year found that over half of construction workers in Britain are concerned by the prospect of a skills shortage due to the end of free movement of labour from the European Union.