Brick shortage could worsen housing crisis, estate agents warn

A shortage of bricks in the UK will continue to restrain supply and force house prices ever higher, according to a housing industry body, while the Brexit vote could further hamper building levels by squeezing imports and numbers of skilled construction workers.

The construction sector needs 1.4bn bricks in order to resolve the housing shortage, according to a report by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), which is equivalent to the total amount of bricks need to build all the houses in Leicestershire.

In 2016 the average UK home is made up of 5,180 bricks and the report said to resolve the housing shortage of 264,000 units, it would need 1.4bn bricks.

A shortage of bricks in the past ten years has contributed to the constriction of the housing supply that has in turn led to the sharp house price appreciation of the last decade.

Last year, two-thirds of small and medium-sized construction businesses faced a two-month wait for new brick orders, with almost a quarter waiting for up to four months and one in six waiting six to eight months, which was partially due to the slowdown in housebuilding following the recession.

NAEA managing director Mark Hayward, said: “As well as freeing up more land to ensure we can build the right sort of houses in the right places, it’s crucial we have the right materials and skills to do so.

"It seems a simple consideration, but the fact that we don’t have enough bricks to meet demand has a very real effect and holds up the process from beginning to end.”

Brick supply declined between 2008 and 2013 and partially recovered in 2014 and 2015, according to the report.

Smaller houses, but bigger demand

Even the shrinking of the average house by 46% in the last century has not been enough to counter growing demand for new homes. In 2016 the average home is 83 metres squared, compared to 153 metres squared in the 1920s.

NAEA said this was due to the families being smaller and also due to financial restrictions as house prices have risen 45% over the last decade, buyers have had to settle for smaller properties.

Hayward added: “Houses may be getting smaller but we are needing to build more of them than ever so ultimately our needs for bricks is greater than before.

"We need investment in the sector to boost production, and housebuilding needs an image overhaul, to become a more attractive career prospect for school leavers and graduates. Until this is addressed, we might as well resign ourselves to a life time of astronomical prices and falling levels of home-ownership.”

The association is concerned about the effects of the UK voting to leave the European Union will have on the supply of bricks coming into the country. Hayward said there was also a skills shortage in the UK for construction based jobs. Most labourers come from the EU and the Brexit result could see greater restrictions on foreign workers coming into the UK, which could also compromise the country's ability to build homes.

“We’re concerned that the impact of the EU Referendum means this problem could get worse as we rely on the import of brick components from the EU and of course many of our skilled labourers come from there too.”

Brick industry takes umbrage with estate agents findings

However the Brick Development Association (BDA) disagrees with the report from the NAEA.

BDA chief executive Andrew Eagles said “with absolute authority there is no shortage” of bricks in the UK and the data the report used is out of date as it was from April 2015.

The BDA, which represents 99% of brick manufacturers in the UK, said the there was a significant increase in brick production over the last 15 months, using data from the Office for National Statistics.

Eagles said: “The challenges the brick industry faced in 2014 when there was a dramatic increase in housebuilding are now behind us and the industry is confident it can meet the growing demand for its products in housing and other construction projects.”

According to the BDA, in the second quarter of 2016 brick deliveries grew by 10.4%, compared to the first. Deliveries in June were 7.4% higher than in May.