Award-winning housebuilder says urgent action needed to save regional firms

The managing director of award‑winning regional housebuilder Horgan Homes has delivered a hard‑hitting reality check about the state of UK construction.

Sophie Horgan says that the sector is facing ‘pressure like never before’ and calls for urgent reform to stop small and medium‑sized builders being pushed to the brink.

Speaking at a women’s industry event, Sophie, who runs the Bromsgrove based firm, said soaring material costs, squeezed margins and a planning system that ‘favours scale over local builders’ were combining to create a viability crisis that is shutting down high‑quality regional development across the country.

She said that the challenges facing SMEs were now so severe they threatened the future supply of high‑quality, locally-led housing across the country.

“It’s companies like mine – the SME builders who have been the backbone of UK construction - who are feeling it the most. SME builders once delivered a huge share of this country's homes, but today that share has collapsed.

“Small construction firms continue to go bust at huge rates in what is a shameful waste of talent, experience and knowledge.

“I’m fed up of going to London and hearing developers talk up regeneration projects as if everything is hunky‑dory, because I know that the reality on the ground is far different.

“This is not doom‑mongering – it is a call to be realistic.”

Sophie told guests at the Cheltenham and Gloucester Women in Property event that urgent action was needed both from government and within the construction industry to solve the crisis.

She called on the government to recognise SME builders as a strategic national asset who delivered homes which people wanted.

“We bring design, care and local knowledge and deliver the kinds of homes people actually want. Bungalows done properly. Sensitive infill. Well‑designed small communities.

“That deserves targeted support and it needs fair access to land, sensible planning fees and a procurement system that doesn’t favour scale over quality.

“We also need planning that understands scale. A 20‑home site is not a 2,000‑home site so the system must be proportionate. We need clear, enforceable timeframes for decisions and a route to gaining permission that doesn’t wrap small developers in red tape.

“If the system treats every site the same then the small, local, high‑quality schemes that give communities character will disappear.”

Sophie also called for more action to stabilise the economics of building – including ‘sensible’ policies on energy and materials, mechanisms to help firms manage cashflow and ‘government and industry working together to reduce the volatility that makes long‑term investment impossible for smaller firms’.

The industry must also do more to boost skills and training, attract more diversity into the sector and build partnerships and collaboration which would help spread risk, she added.

Midlands-based Horgan Homes, currently developing a site at Mareham-Le-Fen in Lincolnshire, has an impressive reputation for its commitment to quality housing, winning a WhatHouse? Award for Best Luxury House and Best Small Housebuilder, as well as two International Property Awards.

Sophie is one of the leading female figures in UK construction and part of the Magnificent Seven group of female leaders spearheading a campaign to attract more women into the industry.