Why Britain must embrace new-build housing – despite its ‘rubbish’ reputation
With its grand Georgian townhouses, and colourful riverside terraces built for the Victorian railway workers, the booming city of Bristol is known for its impressive architecture. The leafy estate of Clifton boasts bijou squares with private walled gardens, while the student areas of Redland and Cotham are a pleasant mix of large sandstone Victorian properties and independent shops.
Yet, the city’s design and architecture is – like so many others – taking on a new shape; not one of charm and character built to last for centuries, but instead redbrick new builds, often based on a timber frame, with a lifespan often as little as 50 to 60 years.
In recent years, the city (which is known for its sky-high rents and permanent campervan community on Clifton and Durdham Downs) has sprawled north east, up the M32 and out towards the M4.
Figures from Bristol Council show some 30,420 houses have been built since 2006, all to tackle the housing shortage. It plans to build a further 2,000 a year for the next two decades.
And it is a similar story over the bridge in Cardiff.
There, under Welsh Labour – in what is perhaps an ominous sign of what is to come in England – some 25,000 have been built in roughly the past two decades, many on the greenbelt. Cardiff Council plans to build a further 22,000 more over the next decade, with roughly a quarter of these being affordable homes.
It is a situation that, like it or not, we need to get used to.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already set about ripping up planning rules and reinstating house building targets to local councils in a bid to see 1.5m new dwellings built in the next few years. Needless to say, share prices in leading building firms – Taylor Wimpey, Barratt and Berkeley – have all leapt at the news.
But such a gung-ho attitude to building still doesn’t address the simple opinion held by so many – that period homes are desirable and new-builds are rubbish. We can build all the modern homes we like, but if they are poorly built, soulless and sit in estates devoid of community, Victorian terraces will always be the preferred option.
For Robin Engley of the Bristol branch of estate agents Knight Frank, the appeal of a house to prospective buyers changes on a case-by-case basis. “Some will love the charm and luxuries of a period property – the volume of the rooms, the cornicing and fireplaces and large windows,” he says. “These properties are also in established areas with shops and schools in walking distance. It’s hard to put a price on that.
“Having said that, they can come with damp and be expensive to run, with old gas boilers, and single skin windows, whereas new builds are a blank canvas, perhaps close to a motorway, with warranties on the white goods. They may have a plastic window as opposed to sash and the houses may all look the same, but the maintenance can be much less expensive.
“First and foremost though,” he adds, “there is a need for them, not just in the south west but across the whole country.”
There is, no doubt, a need. The UK has a huge shortage of stock. There are roughly 26 million properties for a population of roughly 60m. It is also ageing, with about a fifth of these built pre-1919 and almost three quarters built before 1980.
According to Dr Alan Singleton, housing expert at Swansea University, in recent times, the most notable push for new housing took place between the WWII and through to the mid-Seventies. “There was a strong desire for people back then to leave polluted and crumbling Victorian neighbourhoods and move to the suburbs,” he says.
But in recent decades, even with schemes such as Help To Buy, building has petered off, with developers mostly blaming complicated planning regulations and red tape for making building inefficient and not cost effective. Between 2022 and 2023, just 246,810 homes were built across England and Wales.
Of course, the new homes that were built since 2021 have their positives, coming with solar panels, electric charging points and often a cheaper price point than an older property. For instance, a four-bed Victorian terrace in the heart of Bristol ranges from £800,000 to £1m. In the new build estates on the city outskirts, a four-bed is more like £500,000. But they have not universally been considered a success and do come with pitfalls, both in terms of the builds and communities they create.
In one of the new housing developments close to Radyr on the outskirts of Cardiff, one resident told The Telegraph: “We bought here as we wanted to live in the village of Radyr but couldn’t afford it. This is our second newbuild. The first was a shoebox, came with no lawn, and was sold as a three-bed, even though you couldn’t fit a bed in the third room. This one has had big problems with drainage and mould, and the garden has had to be re-turfed three times in five years.
“But the strangest part is the delineation on the estate. There are the flats for social housing, then there are the medium-priced homes which have white front doors, and then the more expensive elite homes, which have black front doors. In a city, it’s a melting point. You will have students next to doctors. But here, the property companies make it very obvious who has money and who doesn’t and I’m not sure it makes for good social cohesion. I am going to rebel and paint my door pink.
“There’s also no local infrastructure so if you want to buy a pint of milk and don’t have a car, it’s a 30 minute walk, which obviously isn’t great in the rain.”
Similarly, in Northstowe in Cambridgeshire, the biggest new town since Milton Keynes, locals recently complained “there is nothing here.”
For Paula Higgins, the chief executive of HomeOwners Alliance, which campaigns for better rights for homeowners, the homes are often beset by problems, including snagging, lack of insulation and poor quality workmanship. Bleakly, she points out that consumer protection is limited, with people having more rights if they buy a toaster than if they buy a house.
And she highlights data from the Home Builders Federation, which shows that in 2023, 47 per cent of the 50,000 new homeowners questioned reported 10 or more snags, while 33 per cent reported 16 per cent or more. Tellingly though, she points out what she describes as the “nation’s next big scandal” – hidden estate management fees.
“Many of the housing developments, once finished, are not properly adopted by local councils and left in a murky grey area,” she says. “Residents are often legally required to pay management charges, sometimes up to £1,000 a year, in order to pay for grass cutting, or to prune the trees or maintain a new playground or the lighting. But on top of this, they still pay council tax to have their bins removed. New buyers should, of course, be made aware of it before they buy but often they seem to not be fully aware of what’s involved.”
But these hidden costs are not the only issue, with some experts attributing cut corners and shoddy workmanship on the huge pressures developers are under to meet green targets.
In 2022, emissions from residential buildings accounted for 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. And so, in a bid to reach the 2050 net zero target, since 2021, new homes have been expected to produce 30 per cent lower carbon emissions than previous standards, which has led to installation of heat pumps and triple glazing and low energy lighting. According to the Home Builders Federation, newer homes are on average 60 per cent more energy efficient than period homes, equating to savings of £1,685 a year on average on energy bills.
“There is a reputation for poor quality in new builds and if anything, I think it’s getting worse,” says architect Saghir Hussain, of Create It Studios in Manchester. “There’s a lot of red tape in construction and it’s squeezing developers so they use cheap materials and lightweight construction to keep costs down.
“There have been big challenges, such as Covid and Brexit and the Ukraine war pushing up prices. But the green targets make building a tick box exercise and the design gets overlooked. And I believe a lot of it is greenwashing, as often the materials are not locally sourced.”
Clearly, it is possible to build beautifully and sustainably – and not for excessive costs. In 2019, for instance, a small estate on Goldsmith Street in Norwich designed by Mikhail Riches won the Stirling Prize for architecture.
The project comprised 100 ultra low-energy council homes for the council, modelled on Victorian streets, each one with south facing roofs and solar panels. Parking was pushed to the development’s outskirts, and 25 per cent was communal space. Bespoke garden gates and brightly coloured front doors gave each home a strong sense of individuality and ownership.
Similarly, the two Duchy estates Poundbury and Nansledan, in Dorset and Cornwall respectively, have drawn praise for their creation of mixed-use, mixed-income neighbourhoods, built around independent shops and primary schools. Slate and granite for building has also been sourced from the local quarry and holiday lets are banned. Not surprisingly, buyers are on board.
“We are literally selling at our build rate,” says Ben Murphy, estate director for the Duchy of Cornwall. “To buy a brand new house with character, in a real place with a community, is quite rare. It’s more than just a housing scheme. It’s a new community.”
Such positive new builds can, then, be achieved. According to the trade organisation, the Home Builders Federation, there are many new build estates (created without the help of the King) which often prove very successful.
Its reports show that in the year September 2022 to 2023, a customer survey of 50,000 people in newly built estates showed 88 per cent were satisfied with the quality of their home, and 90 per cent would recommend their builder to a friend. Some 79 per cent said they were satisfied that their home was completed on time, while 85 per cent said they were satisfied with the service provided by their builder during the buying process.
Of course, some have questioned the reliability of the reports. Higgins says the surveys are sent out before many problems emerge.
But for Richard Harvey, a partner at architecture firm PRP, new builds have got better.
“Of course, suburban sprawl can be so uninspiring when it has no infrastructure or community facilities,” he says. “And I think some new developments in the past were often small and poor quality.
“There will always be people who don’t like new developments or change, especially on the green belt. But some areas really want new housing as they know their young people can’t afford to stay in the area otherwise.
“Such housing brings in families and diverse sustainable communities, to stop post offices and bus routes closing,” he adds. “I really think we need to start seeing the benefits of them. And not just the drawbacks.”