The Construction Products Association has dismissed deputy prime minister John Prescott’s claim that the industry is to blame for the high costs of building homes.

In a letter to the ODPM, Roy Harrison, the president of the CPA, said rising prices were as much a product of the government’s own policies such as building on brownfield areas.

He said: “The greater emphasis on developing brownfield sites has inevitably brought with it additional remediation and site preparation costs, while changing building regulations have required the installation of more and higher value construction products such as increased insulation and double-glazed units.”

Harrison made his comments in response to a speech last month in which Prescott said he had “had enough” of rising construction costs for homes, and vowed to bring down the price.

He said: “What you [Prescott] did not make reference to in your speech was that over the past 10 years the price of constructing a new house has risen at only half the rate of house price inflation.”

Developing brownfield sites brings the additional costs

Roy Harrison, CPA president

Harrison said costs had risen at four times the rate of general inflation over the past decade. He said the reasons for this were complicated but that the cost of construction products had risen by only 27% over the period.

He said the debate over costs and modern methods of construction was obscuring the lessons of the Barker review, which called for a marked increase in housing supply.

Harrison said that the solution lay in increasing the supply of housing in order to address the issues of price and affordability.