Major housebuilders 'very bad' at building new homes, says wildlife charity boss

Housebuilders in the UK are failing to supply much-needed new homes, not because of restrictive planning laws but because they are "very bad" at building houses, the head of one of the UK's biggest nature charities has warned.

- Fiona Harvey Helena Horton

"There's planning permission today for a million new houses," said Craig Bennett, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. "So why aren't they being built? Why is it that volume housebuilders in this country are actually very bad at building houses, even when they've got planning permission?"

Ministers have boasted of their reforms to the planning system - in a bill that passed its second reading last week - claiming they will clear the way for the 1.5m new homes promised in the Labour manifesto.

But Bennett thinks this hope is in vain as the government is missing the point. The reason so few homes are built, he said, "is because they [the large housebuilders] love to hold land and wait for the prices to go up. A lot of the way housebuilders in this country make money is through speculation around land prices as much as it is about building houses."

Housebuilders rejected Bennett's analysis. Steve Turner, an executive director of the Home Builders Federation, said: "Housebuilders deliver a range of high-quality environmentally friendly house types to meet all budgets, and customer satisfaction levels are at an all-time high.