Chancellor’s Growth Plan Misses Retrofit Opportunity, says FMB

The Chancellor has missed an opportunity to propel regional economic growth by committing to a long-term plan to retrofit our country’s homes – a market worth over £4 billion every year, says The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in response to his speech at Bloomberg HQ.

Brian Berry, Chief Executive at FMB said, “It’s always positive to hear that the Government is ambitious in its plans for taking the country forward, but what I’m not seeing is a coherent plan to achieve this. Small, local builders and consumers desperately need a template for how we are going to improve the energy efficiency of our homes. This will create confidence in the market and supply chain to start embracing retrofitting at the scale required to ensure our homes are fit for the future. This will mean that we’ll have the skills and technology to be truly global leaders in green energy resulting in the creation of thousands of direct and indirect new jobs. The Chancellor needs to use the upcoming budget to ensure there are bold plans in place to drive forward greening of our homes.”Berry concluded, “Beyond greening our homes, I’m disappointed to see little in the way of housing being mentioned to boost the UK’s financial prospects. Housing is a major employer and SME house builders  train the majority of apprentices that enter the industry. More needs to be done to make sure we build new, quality, and diverse housing, which is a small house builders’ bread and butter. I urge the Chancellor to seriously consider easing the burden of SME house builders by providing them more support through the planning system to stem the losses in housing delivery from them.”