Social housing costs comparisons unfair

Your figures in the piece used an outdated rule of thumb and extrapolated the findings to arrive at a statement that traditional housing is built for on average almost £40,000 less than social housing.

Firstly, in the south, land equates to approximately half the overall cost of a scheme.

Secondly, developers costs are generally stated as actual build cost excluding overheads and profit (these are counted on the balance sheet at sales stage). Conversely social housing contractors include their overheads and profit within the contract sum.

Thirdly, social housing contracts include many contractual obligations that are not imposed on private housing developers, for example; HQIs, ECO Homes, SBD, Considerate Constructors, etc.

Finally, in my experience our company tends to construct social housing units on sites that have been rejected by private developers. Many seem to be inner city brownfield sites with problems to be resolved.

The Housing Corporation has to take into account these factors prior to reducing the funding per unit.

Paul Scammell, TAB Projects