CMA study into housebuilding launched

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has confirmed that it is launching a market study into housebuilding.

The move follows a call last year from housing secretary Michael Gove for the CMA to look at housebuilding to ensure that the housing market is competitive and “working in the interests of consumers”. In a letter to the CMA last December, Gove wrote that in the 14 years since the last housebuilding market study, “significant changes” had occurred in the market and the challenges the country faced, including net zero.

The CMA said today that there is “widespread concern about housing availability and costs” and “concerns that builders are not delivering the homes people need at sufficient scale or speed.”

Comments are invited by March 20 on the issues raised by the study’s Statement of Scope, with the study report set to be published within a year (February 27 2024).

Alongside the study, CMA will start a separate consumer protection project related to rented accommodation. This will seek to shed light on the experience of renters and explore whether more could be done to help landlords and intermediaries to understand their obligations.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said: …