Thames Valley: More homes needed across the UK, says minister

The residential property market needs more small and medium-sized builders coming back to the market - in order to meet the UK's housing needs, Alok Sharma, the minister for housing and planning told an audience in Reading.

The MP for Reading West, addressing the Thames Valley Property Forum at Green Park, said: "We have not built enough houses over decades. It's not a party political issue as all parties are responsible.

"We need to diversify the market and we need to see a lot of smaller companies come back to the market. We have introduced various funds to help small and medium-sized builders, but some builders say there are just not enough sites for them."

Sharma said there were 190,000 net additions to the housing stock in the last year, "but we should be building 250,000 homes a year".

He added that homes needed to be of "really good quality". That might mean that builders might "want to think about employing people directly" rather than using so many contractors. "We want well-designed homes that people want to live in," he said.

On planning consent, Sharma said local authorities needed to work together and "talk cross-border" in order that more residential properties could be approved. "We have to deliver a lot more houses and a lot quicker," he declared.

Sharma appeared at the Forum on the day that the inquiry began into the Grenfell Tower fire. Sharma said there needed to be a national conversation about social housing. "If changes are required, we will make changes," he said.