Housebuilding giants hit with £4.5bn lawsuit for allegedly overcharging buyers Property Seven of Britain’s largest housebuilders are facing a class action lawsuit worth a potential £4.5bn in damages over allegations they overcharged 700,000 buyers of new-build properties. Mark McLaren, former parliamentary and legal affairs manager at consumer group Which?, is planning on launching the claim against FTSE 100 firms Barratt Redrow and Persimmon, FTSE 250 companies [...]
‘Great shame’: Berkeley challenges blocked Peckham development Property Berkeley has launched a bid to push through its 850-home development at a “run down” Peckham shopping centre, slamming the council for its “spectacular failure” to meet housing targets. The FTSE 250 housebuilder has applied for a judicial review of the planning inspectorate’s decision to block the plans, which it says wrongly put heritage concerns [...]
London councils won’t be able to sue their way to more homes being built Politics Last week I asked the chief executive of one of the country’s largest housing developers to sum up the state of housebuilding in London, and the answer was “dire.” If I’d allowed two words I suspect one of them would have been unprintable. The situation is so disastrous that Sadiq Khan was forced to lower [...]
Berkeley warns of London housing slowdown in call for ‘political leadership’ from Burnham June 24, 2026 Berkeley has called for “strong political leadership” on housebuilding from potential Prime Minister Andy Burnham as it warned that London is on course to miss its housing targets. The capital’s biggest housebuilder issued a swathe of demands to policymakers, warning that there is “no prospect of material improvement” on housebuilding “without more decisive intervention” from [...]
Peckham could do with some Del Boy graft May 21, 2026 Peckham’s most famous son, Del Boy, once observed that “He who dares, wins” – adding “He who hesitates, don’t.” It’s a motto on which Southwark Council would do well to reflect, considering there are more than 22,000 people on the borough’s social housing waiting list. Southwark’s Liberal Democrats point out it will take the council [...]
Housebuilders on hook for mansion tax if they fail to sell property after a year May 20, 2026 Property developers will be forced to pay the Labour’s new mansion tax if they take more than a year to offload newly built luxury homes, raising fresh fears that housebuilders will be further disincentivised from building homes in the capital. As part of plans included in a Treasury consultation document, housing developers will be liable [...]
Rejecting affordable homes means Peckham will get no homes May 19, 2026 Southwark council has rejected the redevelopment of the low-rise Aylesham shopping centre on the basis that it did not include enough affordable homes. This completely misses the point, says Jeremy Driver London has England’s most acute housing shortage: the average rent for a one-bedroom flat is now around £1,500 a month, and the average home [...]
‘Downright offensive’: Southwark council slammed for blocking 900 homes May 19, 2026 Southwark council has been blasted for celebrating the blocking of an 867-home development on the site of a Peckham shopping centre. The local authority hailed a “great day for Peckham” after housebuilder Berkeley failed to overturn a ruling against the development, which would have delivered retail, leisure and commercial space alongside the hundreds of homes. [...]
Sadiq Khan’s ideological aversion to profit is blocking London housebuilding April 29, 2026 Just as measures to stimulate the housebuilding sector are being warmly received, Sadiq Khan is undermining efforts with talk of rent caps, writes Andrew Teacher.
Housebuilding stocks recover as industry reaches ‘rock bottom’ April 15, 2026 The UK’s biggest housebuilder kept to the well-rehearsed tone of gloom which has loomed over the sector in recent months, when it became the latest to pull back on spending amid the market uncertainty caused by the Iran war. FTSE 100 firm Barratt Redrow said its financial targets hold firm, but warned that the blockage [...]