TOP 100: Housebuilder lays bare the impact of the ‘broken planning system’

If you wanted one single story in our Top 100 series to underline the impact on business of a failure to address housebuilding it is this story, based on the latest figures from Newland Homes.

* The Reports & Deals section of Raikes is also home to its star attraction, the perpetual Top 100-plus Businesses in Gloucestershire list, which tracks the financial fortunes of the county’s biggest firms by turnover, and is made possible by its sponsor, Randall & Payne, also one of our Founding Partners. If you are not already, please consider upgrading to paid (currently just £1.27 a week or £5.50 a month - that’s £66 a year!). You’ll be able to read all of this post - and you’ll be helping to make this community interest company sustainable. Contact andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.

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A publicity shot from earlier in 2024: Newland Homes celebrates reducing its carbon emissions by 49 per cent.

If you wanted to read a single story in our Top 100 series that underlined the impact on business of our nation’s failure to address housebuilding it is this one, based on the latest financial figures from Newland Homes.

Barely a week has gone by since our new Government was elected that construction and planning have not been mentioned, with deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, letting all of us know that reform of the planning system is coming and 300,000 new homes a year the target.

It is music to the ears of many house builders, who have been openly calling for reform till they are blue in the face.

At a recent Gloucestershire Property Forum event Raikes reported on Simon Firkin, of SF Planning, said that without help to encourage a thriving small to medium-sized housebuilders diversity would continue to be lost within the housing market. 

Speaking at the same event, Christopher Young KC, of No5 Barristers’ Chambers, said that proof existed - just take Tewkesbury borough - that if we build more houses prices will come down. 

The just-published annual results of Newland Homes, one of Gloucestershire’s long-standing small to medium-sized housebuilders, speaks volumes about all of the above - and of the impact a lack of action from Government is having on businesses.

Turnover is down, profit is down and it lays the blam firmly at the foot of the “the vagaries and inadequacy of the planning process”.

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