The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has called on Ministers to urgently act on measures outlined in the Government's Housing White Paper.

The document, which was published in March, emphasised the need to diversify the house building sector so it is less reliant on a small number of large house building companies to deliver housing.

However the FMB said that since the Paper was published six months ago, there has been "limited movement" on the range of policies.

In response to a report published today, 18 August, by the Local Government Association (LGA), FMB Chief Executive Brian Berry said the organisation is right to highlight the slow rate of house building in England "as we are currently still building significantly fewer new homes than we need to be to meet demand".

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"Not only are we not building enough homes right now, but we've been under-building in this country for decades," he said.

"In order to address this problem, it is vital that the Government acts on key proposals in the March 2017 Housing White Paper.

"The LGA report also raises concerns regarding the quality of new homes and points to one in ten home buyers being dissatisfied with the end result. To put this another way, that means 90% of consumers are satisfied with the quality of their new home, which is a high customer satisfaction rate. Furthermore, this satisfaction rate is likely to be higher still among customers of SME house builders like the ones represented by the FMB. Our members market themselves on building high quality bespoke homes for their clients and this is their unique selling point.

"The LGA report also suggests that total investment in new homes should be greater than total investment in the refurbishment of our existing homes. Given that the UK's housing stock is among the oldest in Europe, with a high proportion of heritage properties and listed buildings, it is equally important that these homes are properly looked after and maintained. In other words, it's not an either or situation.

"If we are to solve the housing crisis then we must increase the delivery of new housing but also maximise the lifetimes of our existing buildings. The Government could help encourage greater investment in our existing housing stock by reducing VAT from 20% to 5% to encourage more people to properly maintain their properties," Mr Berry concluded.

(LM)