“Disappointing” report misses the point, says HBF

The Home Builder’s Federation (HBF) has spoken out against a RIBA report decrying “shoebox homes”, accusing the organisation of failing to ask the right questions and publishing “statistics in a vacuum”.

The RIBA report – Case for Space – doesn't once look at reasons behind the sizes of new homes and fails to mention land supply, the planning system or the proposed National Planning Policy Framework, nor does the report does not address viability, the HBF said.

Despite the current housing crisis and incredible pressures on home builders on all of these issues, high customer satisfaction ratings demonstrate that new home buyers are overwhelmingly happy with the product home builders provide and new homes are cheaper to run, warmer and greener.

HBF's members can only exist if they are able to build houses customers want and can afford.

The organisation described the report as “a missed opportunity concentrating on housing size statistics in a vacuum without addressing any of the issues behind them”. In the midst of the current debate about the proposed National Planning Policy Framework, Case For Space fails to examine land supply, economic viability, inconsistent planning rules and regional variations.

The HBF went on to say that it is imperative that we get a new simplified planning system, creating an environment where more permissioned land is brought forward, current constraints are removed and our members can come together with local communities to build the environmentally-friendly, spacious, well-designed homes they want to build

"This report is a disappointing missed opportunity,” said HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley. “We'll happily work with RIBA and others but if they are serious about the future of housing in this country they must support the proposed NPPF and ensure that they fully understand the pressures on land and viability that home builders face every day. Even with these constraints developers are building the homes that this country desperately needs and providing billions of pounds of investment in infrastructure and the environment.”