Ministers have caved in to pressure from the large house builders and their trade body The Home Builders Federation (HBF) to lower standards, meaning councils will have no longer have power to require and impose stricter standards. This will result in many more small, insecure and unsustainable new homes being built in Britain.
Instead of learning from construction best practice, the government has caved in, yet again, to pressure from “big housebuilding.”
The government’s main aim of the technical housing standards review was to strip out standards, rules and regulations that complicate the house building process. The RIBA had lobbied to force house builders to build bigger new homes via their ‘Case for Space’ campaign. Other initiatives included reducing carbon footprints, improving security, on-site renewable energy sources, and rainwater harvesting to reduce water consumption. Despite this, the brief has been used as an opportunity of further reducing the cost of building new homes and stop local authorities from demanding certain conditions as part of the planning process.
This was a lost opportunity to examine how the nation can build great homes for the next generation and beyond, requiring new homes to have proper security features, sustainability, access standards, and a reasonable and decent amount of space to live in. Instead we will now have the same cramped, over-developed housing estates with standardised small new homes being built up and down the country, lowering house builder’s operational costs and increasing, their profit margins even further.