Speaking at the Westminster Social Policy Forum Seminar, attended by DFT, on the key issues regarding housing policy, Mr Hollinrake shared his views on government action to end the housing crisis.
“I have owned and run a property business since 1985,” said Mr Hollinrake.
“In those 30 years that I have been in the property business, I cannot remember a time when there has been more political interest and more intervention into the property market.
“The Housing and Planning Bill is probably the most comprehensive piece of legislation in this parliament, certainly to date.”
“These policies are looking to achieve three objectives: to build more homes, to increase owner occupation and to develop and encourage a more sustainable and professional private rented sector.”
However, the seminar did see strong criticism of government policies and legislation.
“During the coalition government, there were many things that came in to do with boosting the demand for housing, in particular things like Help to Buy,” said Andy Pyle, Partner and UK Head of Real Estate at KPMG.
“But we are now in a different position, and I think there needs to be much more emphasis on the supply side, because if you don’t move supply forward then all you get into is a position where you just stoke house price inflation.
“One of the problems on the supply side initiative is that many policies have been announced but have not necessarily been actually implemented, and if they have been implemented, then we haven’t really seen the benefits.”
Gill Payne, Director of Policy and External Affairs at the National Housing Federation, added: “We have already seen schemes that were planned to be built being mothballed.
“This uncertainty is causing more problems.”
Andrew Dixon, Policy Adviser for the Federation of Master Builders, raised concerns about the number of construction workers available to work for SME builders, warning that 400,000 workers were due to retire in the next few years.
“We are already seeing project delays and significant wage inflation which has an impact on prices,” said Andrew.
“From a policymaker’s point of view, we still have a long way to go.”
However, Stephen Dance, Head of Infrastructure at HM Treasury, argued that, from where he sat, and after meeting ministers from the Chancellor down, he got the feeling that there was a real force of political commitment.
He did however admit that there was frustration on providing delivery.
“For some reason or another, and it’s really pretty frustrating in a number of ways, we just don’t seem to get the numbers of new houses out at the other end of the sausage machine,” said Stephen.
“One of the key issues is that to get new housing built requires a lot of stuff to come together.
“It’s got to have land, it’s got to have planning permission, it needs transport infrastructure, it needs the utilities infrastructure, it needs schools and it needs people.
“Look, if this was easy, then we wouldn’t be really having a conference – and it is really difficult on the ground to get all of these different stars and issues aligned.”
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