Redrow CEO says local authorities unable to reach housing targets
Abstract: Councils are unable to meet central government housing targets, Redrow CEO John Tutte said. Housing is the responsibility of different local authorities across the UK and that "fragmented" and complicated system meant it would be tricky for smaller house builders to access the £44bn ($60bn) of financing earmarked for housing, Tutte said. Meanwhile, larger firms who don't need access to that funding are the ones with a skillset to understand the system, he added.

Redrow chief executive John Tutte has said government targets won’t be hit while local authorities remain responsible for housing.

Describing the local authority structure as “fragmented”, Mr Tutte said it was unlikely that central government targets would be achieved if the current system was maintained.

“You will never get the housing delivered in this country while you rely entirely on local authorities making the decisions,” he said.

“The problem with housing is it’s left to all the local governments across the country.

“If you wanted to build a railway line from London up to Leeds and you left it to the local authorities, well it’d never get joined up would it.”

Speaking exclusively to Construction News, Mr Tutte said he believed it would be difficult for many smaller housebuilders to access the £44bn-worth of finance promised for housing in last week’s Budget.

“There are so many finance initiatives, it’s a minefield trying to work your way through what all the funding options are,” he said.

“The larger companies, who to be frank don’t need access to that funding, would have the people and the resources and the skillset to understand it all.

“But all this funding is directed [to] businesses that are not of a scale and don’t have the in-house resources to know how to access it.

“So I do think [the government] make life a little bit complicated at times. It’s a pity they can’t have a more effective way to put funding into smaller businesses.”

Mr Tutte also questioned the uptake of government funding in recent years.

“I’d be interested to know of the money that’s been allocated in these funds over the last five years how much of it has actually been taken up,” he said.

“Nothing ever really gets said about that. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

The chief executive expressed his disappointment over the Budget announcement that the government was conducting another review into landbanking.

However, he told CN he hoped Oliver Letwin’s latest review would analyse other obstacles to development.

“It’s a little bit disappointing that the government still thinks the industry might be landbanking,” he said.

“I think the industry has been reviewed four times on landbanking.

“It comes from local authorities [who] say, ‘We’re granting all these permissions and they are not being built out’.

“But we very much challenge a lot of the numbers that come out of local authorities.

“I’m confident that [Oliver Letwin’s review] will show that we’re not landbanking; hopefully it will also show where the real logjams are.”