1.5 Million Homes in Five Years? Are You Joking?

As we all know, one of the new Labour Government’s plans is to build 1.5 million new homes in five years. According to the Big Issue that’s down to just six companies to deliver.

That’s 821 per day of the five years of the Government’s life. Per day. Or 34 per hour. The way things are looking 34 a week would be a miracle.

The BBC has a story about the housing estate from hell. Bassingbourn Fields, Fordham, Cambridgeshire, is a development of 100 new-build homes, but it’s riven with problems:

For some in this new build community, the name of the developer – Bellway – has become a dirty word.

“We call it Hellway,” one homeowner tells me, after what residents describe as more than two years of chaos and no end of snags – the industry term for defects.

Bellway says it is working on resolving outstanding issues. So what has gone wrong?

“When you buy a new-build you expect some snags – a few cracks here and there,” says Jon Trevenna, 70, who moved into his house in early 2022, hoping for an easy retirement and more time with his grandchildren.

“You don’t expect three major leaks in your bathroom, a downstairs radiator to be plumbed into the upstairs and vice versa, the fence between you and your neighbour to look like a rollercoaster,” he adds.

“There were so many problems, most of the small stuff we had to fix ourselves.”

At first glance, Bassingbourn Fields looks like a textbook modern development, surrounded by countryside.

But the residents we’ve spoken to tell a very different story.

A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.

“The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14,” she says.

“We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here.”

Yet, says the BBC story, Bellway has won five-star status for eight years running in the Home Builders Federation.

We asked Bellway Homes to explain the chaos at Bassingbourn Fields.

In a statement, it said it was “aware of defects on the site” and wanted to “apologise to homeowners who may not have received the service expected”.

“A new home is a hand-built product, so defects do occur, and often only become apparent once homeowners move into their home,” the company continued.

“As a responsible developer, all of our homes are sold with the benefit of a 10-year Buildmark warranty, of which the first two years are covered by Bellway, whereby we will remediate any defects found in properties.”

While many hazards have been fixed, there are still cracked or overgrown pathways, a flooded drainage basin and metal pipes or electrical wires protruding into the recently completed children’s play area.

Bellway said it was working on resolving these outstanding issues.

Last month it handed over responsibility for the site’s upkeep to a third-party management company.

Some residents have refused to pay their first bill.

Perhaps that could all be dismissed as a one-off. Another purely coincidental ‘one-off’ is the luxury development of 40 homes at White Horse Meadows, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, this time built by Kendrick Homes. According to the Mail:

Residents of a “luxury” newbuild development where homes sell for up to £700,000 say they’ve been sold a lie and are living in a nightmare.

White Horse Meadows near Banbury in Oxfordshire boasts around 40 properties – many built in the traditional sandstone quarried in the region making them stand out from your average newbuild.

But while developers Kendrick Homes gloats of “our commitment to quality, detail, design and pride shows in the homes we build” and how “behind our quality new build homes lies a century of craftsmanship” – its residents say otherwise.

“This was meant to be the perfect home, I was so excited to get in,” said the 32-year-old, who shares the property with her Labradors Atlas and Dudley.

But alarm bells began ringing when problems with the home pushed Livvy’s move in date back four months – which nearly cost her the buyer on her previous property.

Mateusz Florczak, who is originally from Poland, worked hard to buy his £360,000 home with his girlfriend but has been left disgusted at how Kendrick have treated him.

“They dug up our drive three times, they asked once if they can do it,” the engineer explained. “One day I came back from work, saw a massive digger in my driveway and a hole two metres deep. Nobody ever told me.”

The house appeared in good condition when the couple first set foot in it last September but by the second day the sink and shower had leaked – wrecking the ceiling in the downstairs toilet.

The 33-year-old explained: “They cut part of the ceiling off, it wasn’t glued properly, you can’t have a shower.”

There were issues elsewhere, with Mateusz adding: “The decorating was so poor and badly done you could see the waves from the tool used by the plasterer. In every room there were at least 30 burst nails coming from the plaster board. The skirting boards were dirty.

“In the second month we had some tiles drop off the roof. We were chasing them up everyday. We were taking days off from work and they didn’t attend.”

Worst was yet to come as decorators and chippies came in to amend dozens of other decorating and building mishaps – but that turned into its own nightmare.

Mateusz, who submitted seven pages of snagging issues to developers, added: “They sent a painter who put a wet brush and a dirty ladder on our carpet, he didn’t put any dust carpets down. He painted wood with wall paint and just painted patches. He left mess everywhere. I told him to leave.

“They [workers] turned up three times to fix the front door, twice for the balcony doors. The pointing then obstructed the doors. There were stones stuck in the mastic around the door.

“We have lived in a small flat before, this was a big step forward for us. Brand new house means you move in and don’t need to do anything pretty much.”

Worth reading the rest of the story in full to find out about problems experienced by several other discontented buyers. Hard to see how the housebuilding trade is going to transform itself overnight into a Gerry Anderson style fantasy housebuilding machine, with bricks and concrete thrown in at the front while 821 immaculate completed homes appear at the back every 24 hours.

Of all the hostages to fortune Labour has wheeled out since it smelled power, its house-building target looks the one most likely to haunt it to the end of its time in Government. Lack of materials, lack of key trades and lack of basic labour (to say nothing of all the ‘green’ regulations imposed on new builds). But since the party has already hit the ground running with broken promises and pulling out nasty surprises, we need merely to wait to see how this one gets filed away conveniently in the office wastepaper basket. And also how it wasn’t Labour’s fault.