Sir Stuart Lipton criticises housebuilders over 'crisis'

Sir Stuart Lipton, one of Britain's most experienced property developers, has attacked housebuilders for their role in what he called the greatest crisis facing the country.

In his first national media interview since signing a deal to build a City of London skyscraper in February, Sir Stuart said urgent action was needed by housebuilders and politicians to transform the housing market.

He said developments by today's biggest housebuilders were the "potential slums of the future" and politicians from all parties should think more radically about increasing the supply of housing and improving its quality.

"The government has supported the housebuilders as the prime source of new housing, but they have built a maximum of 150,000 a year and it's quite clear that they can't produce any more," he said.

His housebuilding venture, the Silvertown Partnership, set to receive planning permission on Tuesday, is one of the most prominent forays being made by Britain's largest commercial developers into the residential sector.

More than a quarter of the largest real estate investment trusts' development pipelines are residential.

About 160,000 homes were built in the UK in 2013-14 - well below the 200,000-300,000 a year that academics and economists claim are needed.

Barratt, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon, the UK's three largest listed housebuilders by overall volume, built 40,801 homes during 2014 - just a quarter of the year's total output. A further 27 per cent were built by small, privately owned house builders, many of whom are struggling to survive in the face of planning system hurdles and the reluctance of banks to finance their developments.

Last week the chief executive of Persimmon warned that next month's general election was making it more difficult for housebuilders to secure planning permission for sites, stalling development.

Sir Stuart called for "political leadership", reform of the planning system and greater use of legal measures to override local opposition to new development to step up the number of houses being built.

Housing should be planned by an "independent, non-political group which would assess demand and require local councils to designate appropriate sites", he said.

"You have to start from the point of thinking that we are in a crisis - this is as big a crisis as any in the country."

House prices rose 7.2 per cent nationally in the year to February, and 9.4 per cent in London, according to the Office for National Statistics. Surveyors warned last week that the shortfall in housebuilding was set to push prices up further.

Sir Stuart called for greater regional co-ordination of large-scale housebuilding, and more funding for councils' planning departments to improve the design of new buildings.

"If you look at the last 50 years of [housing] development, where are the masterpieces that this planning system has tried to provide?" he said. "Instead we have awful pieces of urban dereliction."

Although Sir Stuart.

Sir Stuart, who is is over 70 and shows no sign of slowing down, is involved in another new project - a skyscraper in the heart of the Square Mile. This is being undertaken by a new partnership he founded with fellow developer Peter Rogers in 2013, after stepping back from his longstanding role at Chelsfield.

The pair worked together in the 1980s on Sir Stuart's most famous project, the Broadgate Estate in the City of London.

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Sir Stuart is one of a series of senior City figures to step into the debate over affordable housing.

Last week John Gildersleeve, British Land chairman, launched an affordable housing landlord. Former Savills chairman Aubrey Adams this month became chairman of one of Britain's biggest social landlords, L&Q.

"Commercial developers never got involved in housing because we felt it was too political," Sir Stuart said. "Everybody ran away because of politics. Now everyone is getting back into housing again, but the government still only turns to housebuilders."

Commercial developers could bring much-needed innovation to the housing market, he said. "Life has changed but housing has not changed. All we are doing [at Silvertown] is applying the same rules [to housebuilding] as we do in commercial property."

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