Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud says first-time buyers should ‘move to Germany’ as he slams UK’s ‘broken’ property market

Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud has slammed the UK property market, calling it ‘broken and dysfunctional’ thanks to large housebuilders focused on hefty profits. The TV presenter, who is also a designer, feels Britain is trailing behind other European countries like Germany and Sweden because of the state of our housing development.

It comes as the face of Grand Designs, who has presented the Channel 4 series since its debut in April 1999, recently said first-time buyers should ‘move to Germany’ as it is ‘the way forward’. The Daily Star reported that Kevin, 64, said: “Somebody asked me this question the other day: ‘What do you say to anybody who’s buying a house in this difficult time for the first time?.

He responded: “I look at the UK market and I see nothing good here. I look at what’s happening in Germany, Holland, Netherlands, Denmark, Scandinavia, I look at other, almost every other North European country and Canada – they’ve got really healthy markets, lots of diverse opportunities, lots of diverse offers and it isn’t hugely expensive. So, yeah, my advice is move to Germany, maybe that’s the way forward.”

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Now, Kevin has said that a lack of competition between developers is stifling quality and innovation and means the market is more sensitive to downturns.

“If I were the housing minister I’d be looking at ways to break this monopoly that two or three companies have over the market,” he told PA. “We have effectively a broken market, a dysfunctional market, it has been hollowed out. It means that when we hit difficulty, those companies nosedive and they buy each other out.

“If, like Germany, we had a really resilient market with thousands of medium-sized companies, you’d find a general ability to flex and respond in a way that is not motivated by panic.”

His comments come after two of the country’s biggest developers, Barratt Developments and Redrow, announced a tie-up worth £2.5 billion in February.

The deal is being investigated by the UK’s competition watchdog to see whether there are any concerns it could significantly reduce competition in the sector.

Kevin said on the deal: “Why on earth a company should be allowed to turn over an amount of money equivalent to the GDP (gross domestic product) of a small nation, I don’t know. That seems to flout some competition laws.”

The presenter was speaking ahead of the Grand Designs Live premier home exhibition, which kicks off at the ExCel venue in London in May, and heads to Birmingham in October. He warned that the UK housing market has worsened in recent years.

“Fifteen years ago, we led the world in the standards we were applying to construction and driving towards net zero. We were winning the race,” he said.

“We are now last we are in such a dreadful position, and all that happened in that time is that our housing industry has got worse and worse, and the level of skill has drained out of construction.”

Kevin said the Brexit referendum had a big impact on the construction industry, which relies considerably on overseas workers and has grappled with labour shortages.

“With Brexit, we saw a lot of people disappear back to other European homes. They were really supporting and masking the lack of skilled trade in the UK, because we had so many foreign workers here who were really skilled.”

The UK’s construction industry has faced challenges in recent months, with residential housebuilding in particular feeling the knock-on effect of higher interest rates gripping the housing market.

Builders have also grappled with tougher economic conditions, including rising prices, weaker demand and disruption in their supply chains.

But there have been early signs of the dial starting to turn, with the sector returning to growth in March after a six-month slump, according to the latest S&P Global construction survey.