TV presenter Kevin McCloud has criticized Britain's “broken and dysfunctional” housing market which he says is monopolized by big housebuilders demanding huge profits.
The Grand Designs presenter and designer said Britain is falling behind other European countries such as Germany and Sweden when it comes to housing development.
“If I were housing minister, I would be looking for ways to break this monopoly that two or three companies have over the market,” McCloud told the PA news agency.
The lack of competition among developers is stifling quality and innovation and means the market is more sensitive to crises, he argued.
“We effectively have a broken market, a dysfunctional market, it has been emptied,” the television star said. “It means that when we run into difficulties, those companies go into a tailspin and buy each other.”
“If, like Germany, we had a truly resilient market with thousands of medium-sized companies, we would find a general ability to be flexible and responsive in a way that is not motivated by panic.”
His comments come after two of the country's biggest developers, Barratt Developments and Redrow, announced a £2.5bn partnership in February.
The deal is being investigated by the UK's competition watchdog to see if there are any concerns it could significantly reduce competition in the sector.
McCloud said of the deal: “I don't know why a company should be allowed to hand over an amount of money equivalent to the GDP of a small nation. “That seems to violate some competition laws.”
The presenter was speaking ahead of Grand Designs Live's major housing exhibition, which starts at London's ExCel venue in May and heads to Birmingham in October.
He warned that the UK property market has worsened in recent years.
“Fifteen years ago, we led the world in the standards we applied to construction and drove towards net zero. We were winning the race,” he told PA.
“Now we're last, we're in a terrible position, and all that's happened in that time is that our real estate industry has gotten worse and worse, and the construction skill level has been depleting.”
He said the Brexit referendum had a major impact on the construction industry, which relies heavily on foreign workers and has grappled with labor shortages.
“With Brexit, we saw many people disappear and return to other European homes. “They were really supporting and masking the lack of skilled trade in the UK, because we had a lot of foreign workers here who were really skilled.”
The UK construction industry has faced challenges in recent months, with residential housebuilding in particular feeling the knock-on effect of higher interest rates taking hold in the property market.
Builders have also grappled with more difficult economic conditions, including rising prices, weaker demand and disruption to their supply chains.
But there have been early signs that the situation is starting to change: The sector returned to growth in March after a six-month slump, according to S&P Global's latest construction survey.
