Housing minister makes it clear: "We must deliver in 2019"

The housing minister has made it clear that his government - and the property industry as a whole - must deliver more new homes in 2019.

In an online New Year’s message, Kit Malthouse says the five months since he became housing minister has probably been the busiest in his political career.

However, he insists that: “2019 really has to be the year of delivery for us as a department but also as an industry generally.” 

He spells out that this means delivering 222,000 homes as a milestone along the road to ultimately delivering 300,000 per year - the government’s target.

“2019 is going to mean more pressure from me into every part of the house building industry to make sure that we are making a big leap forward towards that target.”

He says the industry should focus more on technology, especially the off-site construction of homes - commonplace overseas but still relatively rare in the UK.

Malthouse claims the UK construction model is “kind of old-fashioned” because it uses “bricks, slate, mortar - all that kind of stuff” and he insists that other countries use construction technology more effectively so that “houses can be built from nothing, in a matter of two or three weeks” because of off-site construction.

“We think this holds enormous potential for the country and we are seeing the start of it in some parts but we really need everybody to adopt it.”