RICS predicts government housebuilding targets will be massively undershot

Fewer than 100,000 new homes will be built next year, plunging the government's housebuilding targets into further jeopardy, the RICS has warned today.

The RICS said that 66,220 new homes had been built so far this year, well below the 200,000 needed every year to hit the target of 2 million new homes by 2016. The institution said that at current levels of production the number of new homes being built will fall below 100,000 in the coming year.

Overall, the body said that UK construction workloads fell at their fastest rate for at least 14 years during the third quarter of this year.

The proportion of surveyors reporting a decline rather than a rise in activity rose to 38% in the third quarter, from 19% in the previous three-month period. This is the weakest level since the RICS began its quarterly construction market survey in 1994.

The survey also showed that confidence in output over the next 12 months had dropped to minus 41 in the third quarter from minus 15 in the second quarter. Expectations for employment fell to minus 24 from minus 1.

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