We have a new Labour government and increasing new build home volumes is at the heart of their plans. This is great news for many of the manufacturers within the construction products arena, and certainly good news for those involved in manufacturing timber related products.

If we are to build 300,000 per year – starting now – then we need some considerable change. Twenty twenty-three to twenty twenty-four saw less than 150,000 completions, so we are looking at a 100% increase in a very short period.

The last time we built 300,000 was around 50 years ago and at that time the Local Authorities provided approximately half of them, which means that Private Developers will need to flood the market with double the volume, or Local Authorities will need to step back into building social housing, which is very unlikely if we consider the state of public finances.

So, if we assume that it’s left to the Private Developers, then they are going to be competing for labour and materials (at least in the very short term as manufacturers ramp up), which in turn could cause some level of inflation, which is most likely not the ambition of the plans.

For timber related markets, the ramp up could be more focussed than other sectors, as offsite or Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) could be the route to higher volumes without the acute stress of finding skilled labour – and a lot of it.

Many of the major housebuilders have offsite Timber Frame facilities and it could well be these that are most quickly able to ramp up extra volume.

Even so, building one and a half million new houses seems likely to be a stretch. However, even 80% of that achievement would be a welcome segway to better times for all involved in the industry, including RMI due to the property chains involved.