The National Federation of Builders (NFB) has released a statement regarding the new legislation
The Building Safety Levy has been confirmed as coming into effect in autumn next year.
The levy has recently undergone an consultation, the response to which was published in January.
Responses from the Home Builders Federation have also been negative, with a call to suspend and review the policy.
The government has confirmed that the Building Safety Levy’s policies will be taken forward
The levy is set to charge all new dwellings and purpose-built student accommodations that require building control applications throughout England.
Collection of the levy will be the responsibility of local authorities on behalf of the government. The taxes will be given to the government on a quarterly basis. Councils will be given a grant before the levy comes into effect to cover preparation cost and time.
The amount that the levy will charge per building will be based on the development’s floorspace. Calculations will be made per square metre, and will be up to the discretion of the local authority in order to reflect the geographical variation in development prices.
If the levy is not paid, the certification for building control completion will be withheld or rejected outright. These certificates are required for buildings over 18m in height and a lack of certificate will often result in rejection from mortgage lenders.
The NFB call the new policy “anti-growth”
Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight at the NFB and House Builders Association (HBA), said: “Small builders came to the Government with a solution that shared remediation costs across all accountable industries, as well as delivered a ‘polluters should pay more’ principle. It is devastating news that a fairer form of unfairness has been rejected.
“Our solution would raise funds more quickly, therefore freeing leaseholders of their nightmare. Would not disproportionately target innocent builders and building companies yet to be created. Ensured that SMEs, who train 73% of our apprentices, offer the most secure employment, who were not involved in various industry scandals, and who build the social and affordable housing the Government is basing its reputation on, were not being targeted for the sake of political expedience.”
Richard Beresford, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders, said: “The Building Safety Levy is anti-growth, anti-SME policy, which will weaken the housebuilding industry and put the Government’s 1.5m home promise in further jeopardy. It rejects the polluter pays principle, targeting innocent housebuilders, and risking unintended consequences, such as shrinking the size of new build homes.
“The industry already knew that the Conservative government had chosen to tax innocent housebuilders while letting guilty parties off the hook. We had hoped that Labour, the Government of growth, would reject such a bad policy that hinders industry growth, but instead it chose proportionate unfairness.”
The NFB have written a call to action letter, open for developers to use to send to their MPs, that can be found here.
