微密圈

Communities minister Andrew Stunell has branded UK housing as a 鈥渏oke鈥� due to the industry鈥檚 failure to build houses to perform to their design specifications.

Speaking at a seminar at the Ecobuild conference in London, Stunell compared the UK housebuilding industry with the British car industry 20 years ago, saying
that new houses were 鈥渓eaving the factory broken鈥�.

In a seminar about how to meet the zero carbon homes challenge, Stunell said: 鈥淲e need to make sure the commissioning [of new homes] is right. Twenty years ago the British car industry was a joke because cars were broken when they left the factory. British houses are still a joke because they leave the factory broken.

We need to have a Rolls-Royce or BMW approach to quality

Andrew Stunell, communities minister

鈥淢aintenance and returns are still a big problem in the building industry - we need to be sure that when we say we鈥檝e built something we actually have built it [as designed]. It鈥檚 a difficult job on a number of levels.鈥�

When challenged afterwards on whether his comparison with the former British car industry was fair, he said: 鈥淲e need to have a Rolls-Royce or BMW approach to quality. I鈥檓 asking why only a few builders have achieved this.鈥�

The comments are not the first time that Stunell has raised questions about the actual performance of UK homes that have been designed to high sustainability specifications.

He has proposed that building performance should be signed off independently.