My magazine column has been a gloomy read in 2025 – hopefully down to market conditions and political incompetence, rather than the author failing to enlighten and engage. We’ve had a bit of fun along the way, but that’s largely been from the humour bucket marked ‘Gallows’.
It is a monumentally depressing time for the UK full stop – never mind the housebuilding industry. The Red Bar at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London as the sun set on another WhatHouse? Awards day is always a place of celebration and a touch of deserved overindulgence, but there were sombre moments too, as arms thrown up in victory were quickly followed by hands wringing in utter frustration – even despair – with the government’s handling of the economy in direct – and deliberate? – conflict with the ludicrous promise, which housing secretary Steve Reed has doubled down on, to build 1.5m new homes in this parliament.
Bob Weston, chairman and founder of Housebuilder of the Year Weston Homes, lamented the age-old challenges of planning and over-regulation, but also the lack of support for first-time buyers.
“High construction costs, the regulatory burden, including new building safety standards, and the need for new infrastructure investment make site viability incredibly challenging, particularly for large, complex schemes,” said Weston.
But the Weston Group is determined to drive innovation and efficiency, ‘industrialising sustainability’ to meet the demand for energy-efficient homes, with its investment in British Offsite, and homes built faster, with less waste and greater fabric performance, making them cheaper to run. Meanwhile, the launch of its Weston Partnerships division is in response to the opportunities in the build to rent sector to help create a stable pipeline in a volatile sales market.
“We remain concerned that the 1.5m housebuilding target will remain out of reach unless we do more to help drive access to housing finance for first-time buyers. For the housing market to function, we need people at every stage in their lives to be able to access housing finance,” said Weston.
“Developers cannot build homes at pace unless our customers can access mortgages. And, in the current housing market, construction and homeownership remain constrained by a simple fact: it is far too difficult for first-time buyers to get the finance they need to buy their first home. And that constrains the market all the way up the housing ladder; slows down rates of construction and limits aspiration. We believe the country needs a new form of first-time buyer ‘Loan to Own’ fiscal support to help provide mortgage deposits.”
Rob Perrins, executive chairman of the Berkeley Group, winning gold in the Best Large Housebuilder category of the WhatHouse? Awards, believes the planning environment is getting better, with a focus on improving viability and clearing the backlog at the Building Safety Regulator.
“We have always taken a long-term view, and the fundamentals remain strong – especially in London, which is a world-class city and a severely undersupplied market where people want to live and invest. If we can get more projects through the regulatory system, there are fantastic opportunities ahead,” said Perrins.
“There is no silver bullet. What we need is certainty, so customers and developers can plan ahead with confidence and make positive investment decisions. The government can build this confidence by ensuring everything they say and do reinforces that sense of stability and positive direction. This is key to restoring the all-important feel-good factor that drives growth and housing delivery.
“Plan making must also move faster. Regional and local plans are updated twice a decade, locking in outdated solutions and making technology and product innovation hard to adopt. We need more agile policy frameworks that embrace innovation in real time.”
Fernham Homes won gold for Best Small Housebuilder. Managing director Sean Ellis believes that, with the Budget offering no measures to stimulate the housing market, the government missed “a vital opportunity to encourage housebuilders to accelerate production.”
“As an SME, we see significant opportunities across the market from first-time buyers to downsizers to provide high-quality homes on small to medium-sized sites. These developments can be tailored to local communities, featuring traditional designs that incorporate local materials and are built by local tradespeople, making them truly sustainable,” said Ellis.
“There has been plenty of talk about ‘Build, Baby, Build’, but what the government seems to have overlooked is that housebuilders’ output is driven by market demand. Without demand, increased supply simply isn’t sustainable. We urgently need meaningful government intervention to stimulate the market for new homes and create the conditions for growth.”
This is our first bumper combined Winter issue. So what does 2026 hold? Best not to think too much about that and, in any case, I may need to top up the gallows humour bucket first. So, instead, we wish this wonderful industry a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
