Housebuilders are holding landbanks with the capacity to take more than 600,000 homes, an investigation by The Guardian newspaper has revealed.
Information taken from nine companies’ financial results included sites they own and others they have a contractual option to build on.
The four biggest housebuilders, Berkeley, Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey, are holding more than 450,000 plots between them.
John Stewart, director of economic affairs at the Home Builders Federation, said: “Over the past few years housebuilding has increased output at the steepest rate for decades with the most recent figures showing a 25% year-on-year increase in housing supply.
“The industry is recruiting and training tens of thousands of new people to ensure it can continue to deliver significant sustainable increases and provide the high quality homes the country needs.”
Problems gaining planning approval and weak demand in some areas have been given as reasons for the failure to build.
The other five builders investigated were Bellway, Bovis, Crest Nicholson, Galliford Try and Redrow.
