House building firms in Wales may see the market getting a bit more tricky to navigate, and less worth bothering with, according to the boss of a leading house builder.
Steve Morgan, the chairman of Redrow, has spoken out about the difficulties that new laws are putting in the way of building and selling houses in Wales.
A new law will see all new homes built in Wales fitted with a sprinkler system, in an attempt to reduce deaths and injuries caused by fires.
However, it has been criticised for being not very cost effective, and will damage the profits garnered by the builders.
Furthermore, 30% of housing developments need to have some form of social housing included.
Mr Morgan claimed that the sprinkler system will add an extra £4,000 to the cost of building a home.
“There are whole swathes of Wales, north Wales and south Wales, where we can no longer get a return,” Me Morgan told BBC Wales.
The past few years have seen an increase in the number of home which have been built. Last year, 30 per cent more houses were built than had been the year before. This increase has been put down to the influence of the Help to Buy scheme in Wales.
But in the face of these changes, this upward trend could be affected.
