UK competition watchdog opens probe into 8 housebuilders over information sharing

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched an investigation into eight housebuilders over whether they shared commercially sensitive information after a year-long study into why Britain builds too few homes.

The announcement of the probe on Monday came as the Competition and Markets Authority blamed the persistent failure to build enough new houses on a “complex and unpredictable planning system” and the fact that housebuilding output is heavily reliant on “speculative private development”.

As a result of evidence unearthed during its study, the regulator said it had opened the probe into Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey and Vistry. The CMA said it had not reached any conclusion yet that the companies had infringed competition law.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said the watchdog would investigate “suspected sharing of commercially sensitive information by housebuilders which could be influencing the buildout of sites and the prices of new homes”.

The news of the probe knocked the shares of the homebuilders, with Taylor Wimpey dropping 2.8 per cent, Persimmon sliding 2.4 per cent, Vistry falling 1.7 per cent, Barratt off 1.6 per cent and Berkeley down 1.1 per cent.

Only about 250,000 homes were built across the UK last year, short of the government’s target of 300,000 annually in England alone.

The study, which examined issues including housing quality and land management, was launched a year ago. At the time of the launch, the CMA pointed to “widespread concerns about housing availability and costs” and whether builders were “delivering the homes people need at sufficient scale or speed”.

Its finding on Monday that one of the key roadblocks to housebuilding is the planning system will strengthen the industry’s call for wholesale reform at a time of high tensions…