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The Public Accounts Committee is bang on to call for swift action to assess the New Homes Bonus

The Public Accounts Committee is bang on to call for swift action to assess the New Homes Bonus

Today the New Homes Bonus scheme took a pasting. It was the flagship scheme and the pet project of the incoming housing minister Grant Shapps when the Coalition took office in 2010. And it was heralded as a major incentive to get more homes built. But the powerful House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, following up on a very critical report from the National Audit Office, this morning called for swift action by the DCLG to provide evidence of its…

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What really drives planning applications?

What really drives planning applications?

They say: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s certainly true for house builders and developers looking to gain planning permission. If they want to increase their supply of permissioned land on which to build houses they have to put in a residential planning application in the first place, which then may or may not be rejected. So with house building now back on the agenda in a big way we decided to use Barbour ABI data to examine…

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Boom time for construction? The view from Eeyore’s house

Boom time for construction? The view from Eeyore’s house

I feel for pessimists in construction at the moment. It’s really tough times for doom mongers. Every survey is running high, some touting record-breaking numbers. Meanwhile, forecasters are suggesting we are on the threshold of a phase of growth well above the long-term average. My God. It’s boom time. How can you talk that down? Well okay let me have a go. Not because I’m a pessimist (despite the rumours). Things are looking better. And I take a simple view…

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Strengthening data push construction forecasters towards greater optimism

Strengthening data push construction forecasters towards greater optimism

Construction industry forecasters have been busily upgrading their forecasts in the light of a turnaround in industry fortunes since Spring. Despite all raising their expectations for the future path of construction, at first glance the forecasts from Construction Products Association, Experian and Hewes appear to be telling very different stories. That certainly seems to be the take-away message from the graph. In some ways they are telling different tales, but in reality there’s more similarity than meets the eye. One…

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Why averages are not what they used to be

Why averages are not what they used to be

I had a conversation this morning with Jules Birch about the irritating and downright misleading way statistics are often used. This misuse may be intended or accidental, but the net result is the same. People are fed a distorted picture of reality which influences their view of the world. More worryingly, the misleading meanings ascribed to these statistics are repeated as facts, because they appear to be supported by hard numbers. The world becomes more ignorant and more adamant about…

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August dip of no concern as signs grow that construction is pulling out of recession

August dip of no concern as signs grow that construction is pulling out of recession

Despite the slight tick downward in the ONS seasonally adjusted construction output figure for August the signs are growing that the industry is pulling out of recession. There are many ways to measure growth, but looked at on a 12-month rolling basis output (using the non-seasonally adjusted data) seems to have bottomed out in May 2013 and we have now seen three months of improvement. This is clear from the graph, which also shows that measured on a three-monthly basis…

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Searching for a Higgs Boson to explain the unsolved problems of the housing market

Searching for a Higgs Boson to explain the unsolved problems of the housing market

Over the past few months, particularly the past few days, I have bathed in data, ideas, business models, policies and blue sky thinking on how we can deliver more housing in the UK. This was the central theme running through yesterday’s Housing Market Intelligence conference. It was the broad thread that tied together the expert analyses in the associated Housing Market Intelligence report, which I edit. It was also the basic question that underpinned an Institute of Economic Development London…

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Are we ignoring one of the biggest construction opportunities out there?

Are we ignoring one of the biggest construction opportunities out there?

One of the greatest challenges for the nation is to repurpose its outmoded built environment to better match the needs of a vastly changed world. It needs to adapt offices and shops to fit with the Internet age. It needs to meet the environmental challenges. It needs to improve all forms of communication. And not last and definitely not least it needs to adapt and expand its stock of housing to meet massive demographic shifts. This is a topic that…

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Non-resi building sector could be hardest hit as house builders suck hard on the supply chain

Non-resi building sector could be hardest hit as house builders suck hard on the supply chain

The resurgence of house building has brought with it fears of a supply chain so stretched that we will see shortages appearing, production held back and costs rising. There’s almost certainly something in this. It seems to be common currency. As I’ve discussed before, there are emerging problems with the supply of bricks and labour. And EC Harris, for example, has picked up early signs that prices of materials associated with house building are rising faster than the average for…

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On averages, inequality, energy prices, global warming and the paradox of policy

On averages, inequality, energy prices, global warming and the paradox of policy

In January 2009 Sir Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England, made a speech at a CBI dinner in Nottingham in which he discussed “the paradox of policy”. This speech was delivered at a time of was frenzied speculation and high anxiety over how policy makers were responding to the global financial crisis. He said: “This is the paradox of policy at present – almost any policy measure that is desirable now appears diametrically opposite to the direction…

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