Cooper expresses concern over housbuilder mergers

The Minister for Housing and Planning Yvette Cooper expressed concern at the number of mergers between house builders yesterday, as she spoke at the Housing Forum’s National Conference.

Perhaps alluding to the recent proposed merger between Taylor Woodrow and George Wimpey, Cooper said: “I don’t want to see mergers leading to reductions in the level of housebuilding delivery.”

She renewed her call for the number of houses built each year to be increased, better quality of design, and increased sustainability in line with the government’s aspiration to make all new homes ‘zero carbon’ by 2016.

Cooper also warned that she did not want the industry’s response to ‘zero carbon’ building to be at the expense of government targets to build 200,000 new homes each year by 2016.