The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has produced a guide to support anyone starting out as small housing developers, with tips and advice to ensure businesses are successful.
Becoming a small housing developer: advice and guidance from others in the new homes industry is free to access, an effort to mitigate the decline of SME housebuilders, which now only delivers 10% of our new homes, in comparison to the 40% it delivered over 30 years ago. As reported by the FMB in its most recent survey, custom and self build has a large role in providing a work stream for small housebuilders.
While produced by the CLC, Becoming a Small Housing Developer is the result of many different organisations and companies sharing their ideas and input to support and inform new entrants to the market. These are important as they bring new ideas and energy to the sector.
However, new housing developers face significant many barriers that represent a steep learning curve that can mean the difference between success or not. New housebuilders must navigate the highly complex system and quickly gain understanding or and develop negotiating skills for the many facets of residential development, such as land supply, finance and planning.
The guide was the idea of Chris Carr of Cleethorpes-based Carr & Carr (Builders) Limited, Chair of the CLC SME Housing Subgroup and Vice President of the Federation of Master Builders.
Chris Carr said: “The number of homes built by small, local developers has been dropping for decades and this guide is designed to help to reverse that decline.
“I hope it will be a useful starting point for those wanting to become house builders and help them to get spades in the ground. The guide contains the collective knowledge of seasoned house builders and many industry experts, and I know many of the developers wished they’d had something like this when starting out.
“Small house builders can be a key driver of growth for the UK, they deliver high quality homes using local workers, so I hope this guide goes some way to get more people into the industry and ultimately more homes built.”
John Slaughter, lead for the CLC Housing Working Group said: “I have been delighted to support this important project. It is essential that we take all the steps we can to encourage and help more new entrants into residential development.
“The engagement and collaborative spirit that companies from a number of trade bodies have shown in working together to produce the new guide is a textbook example of how the CLC can convene people from across the industry to produce powerful and useful results.”
