Bidders slam £60,000 house competition

Thirty-three bids from an initial 53 were announced by John Prescott on Monday as being on the shortlist to develop 1000 homes – a third of which will need to be built for £60,000 – on 10 sites across England.

The shortlist – which will be cut to between 12 and 15 in the autumn - did include some surprises such as a partnership between George Wimpey and iconic architect Richard Rogers and a submission from little known Swedish firm Scandinavian Log Cabins Direct.

The bulk of criticism came from disgruntled bidders who felt that the July deadline for the next stage of the English Partnerships-run competition was far too tight.

One housing association source said: “We have a completely unrealistic timetable on which to respond. The fact that they have shortlisted 33 bidders isn’t really a great incentive. We will do it because we have said we will, but there is a general feeling out there that says ‘what is the point of all this?’ The result will be homes that are nowhere near as good as they could have been.”

Ben Derbyshire, director at architect HTA which is bidding in partnership with developer Barratt Developments (see picture above), said: “It is not exactly a very short shortlist. However the challenge for us is to produce something robust and sustainable and I’m confident we can do that in the time we have.”

A source at one of the shortlisted housebuilders said: “If you look at the list, everyone who is anyone is on there and it really does make you wonder what the point is when it is only for 10 pretty poor quality sites. People just want to keep on Prescott’s good side, which seems a bit of a waste of money really.”

We will do it because we have said we will, but there is a general feeling out there that says ‘what is the point of all this?’

Housing association source

Independent planning consultant Roger Humber also criticised the quality of the 10 sites, three of which – in Hastings in East Sussex, Stone in Kent and Merton, south London – were added by the deputy prime minister on Monday.

Humber said: “I can only assume that EP has a sense of humour looking at those last three sites. Some of the sites don’t even have planning permission and Prescott expects them to be ready to start on site in the spring. It is quite frankly a hilarious proposition.”

Humber said that, apart from lack of planning permission on some sites, the problems were the high proportion of affordable housing being asked for and the level of remediation required.

Trevor Beattie, director of corporate strategy at EP, said: “The stage two brief is much tighter than the first brief. It’s very tight and demanding and we expect some consortiums to drop out.”