Taylor Wimpey is stockpiling bricks and other building materials on its construction sites in order to ensure that it can keep on building the company’s south west boss has revealed. Ralph Hawkins, Managing Director of Taylor Wimpey’s South West division told the Major Housing Builders Session at the West of England Economic Growth Conference that the volume housebuilder faced a number of challenges, including access to material and labour supplies.

He said that in order to ensure an adequate supply of building materials, the company has been scheduling deliveries 18 months ahead of when they will be required: “Some sites look like a builders merchant because when we can get bricks and blocks we will bring them to our large sites and then distribute them out ourselves across the developments to ensure we can keep delivering housing.”
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Hawkins said that skills shortages vary across the country but the biggest shortfall in the west of England is roofers, scaffolders and some skilled ground workers.

He said his own division has doubled its recruitment of apprentices. But one of the hurdles is persuading sub-contractors to take on apprentices’ Hawkins said: “The lifetimes of these businesses are much shorter than Taylor Wimpey plc so we have to encourage them to invest in apprentices. It will cost them and they won’t necessarily see the fruits.”

He said that Taylor Wimpey is now looking to directly employ 20 to 30% of the apprentices employed on its sites.  As a longer term answer to its skills shortages headaches, Hawkins said the volume housebuilder’s chief executive has set a target that 20% of the company’s output should use timber frames: “We can’t go on doing what we are doing.”

The company’s other big headache is securing implementable planning permissions. Dealing with reserved matters could add seven months onto securing a planning consent, while pre-application discussions lasting three to four months also had to be factored into the timetable, he said: “We have to find a way of shortening this”

He said his division currently has seven outlets which are on track to deliver nearly 700 units this year. And after a dip next year due to sequencing of sites, its output will grow to 800 units on land under its control, including Berwick Green, near Cribbs Causeway, where Taylor Wimpey hopes to start construction next year on its 450 new home share of a 1,000 home joint venture.

Andrew Dobson, Managing Director of Crest Nicholson, said the volume builder has been examining advanced panel systems, incorporating windows and insulation, which can be fabricated in a factory offsite and delivered to site. The homes can be wind and water tight within seven days of delivery, he said.

He said the system has been trialled for 12 months at one of the company’s sites, where 500 people had been invited to see it in action. The system has also been used to build 50 units had been Bath Riverside, where the company has outline planning permission for up to 2,281 residential units. Of these more than 700 homes have been delivered to date, including 205 affordable units.

Dobson said that across the south west, the company has 13 outlets and is currently building about 650 units per annum.

The biggest of these is at Harry Stoke, north of Bristol, where Crest Nicholson has secured resolution to grant consent from South Gloucestershire Council for 2700 homes.

He said the company will be rolling out its new housing range on the site and at Keynsham in Somerset where Crest is building 272 homes on a greenfield site comprising five land parcels.

Louise Swain, Chief Executive of Alliance Homes Group, told delegates that the north Somerset-based social landlord has plans to deliver 1000 new homes, three quarters of which will be sub market and the balance for market sale with a total build cost of £176m.

She also welcomed prime minister Theresa May’s recent announcement of £2bn extra for housing association development: “The good news is that housing is on the political landscape. The more public money we can get to the more we can scale things up.”

Swain said that Alliance is keen to collaborate with local authorities, pointing as an example to a development at Shirehampton where a grant from Bristol council had enabled an increased affordable element in what had initially been a predominantly market housing scheme. 
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