Link availability of funds to number of homes built, says Colin Lewis

Avant homes the cotham

The boss of Avant Homes has called on the government to overhaul the Help To Buy scheme by linking access to funds to the number of homes built.

Ahead of the Chancellor of the Exchequer鈥檚 Spring statement on Wednesday, Colin Lewis, the Chesterfield-headquartered group鈥檚 chief executive, said changes must be made to rebalance the benefits of the policy 鈥渢o homebuyers and away from housebuilders鈥�.

Last week Theresa May set out the government鈥檚 plans designed to ramp up housebuilding activity, but Lewis called on ministers to go further and re-boot Help To Buy in order to incentivise firms to build more homes.

鈥淭he government has criticised housebuilders but we are saying that it should look at how Help To Buy is used in order to increase volumes. Theresa May said housebuilders should 鈥榙o their duty鈥�, but [while we want to build more homes] our duty is not to the nation as a whole but to shareholders and stakeholders.

鈥淲hile the policy environment remains supportive, we think Help To Buy should be reformed to further encourage housebuilders to increase their output to hit this milestone.鈥�

Lewis said the scheme should stimulate the market 鈥渁t price points that work and help more people buy the home they want.

鈥淟et鈥檚 link the availability of Help to Buy funds for housebuilders to an increase in the numbers of new homes they build.鈥�

If a housebuilder failed to increase output by a given percentage in one year, Lewis said its access to Help to Buy subsidies the following year should be reduced 鈥渁nd thereby switch the emphasis to answering the supply question more than the demand鈥�.

Ahead of Avant鈥檚 27 April financial year end Lewis said the group was on track to deliver a 25% hike in revenue. In 2017 Avant reported group revenues of 拢369m and pre-exceptional operating profit of 拢45m.

Lewis said the firm鈥檚 existing strategic growth target of 2,000 units a year was expected to be hit by December 2018, 12 months ahead of schedule, and the firm was setting itself new, five-year target of more than doubling output to 4,000 homes a year by 2023.