Housebuilder Bellway called for government to “address the demand-side constraints facing first-time buyers,” in a trading update.  

The call from the FTSE 250 firm, which builds everything from social housing to luxury penthouses, comes after the Chancellor heralded “the biggest series of reforms to homebuying regulation in a decade” last month, which she said would lead to an extra 36,000 first-time buyer mortgages over the coming year.      

Rachel Reeves welcomed moves by regulators to ease home loans restrictions at over 4.5 times a buyer’s income, a limit that has been in place since 2014 for large lenders. 

Labour aims to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament.

A range of lenders, such as Santander, Newcastle Building Society and Precise, have lifted their loan-to-income ratios after the Financial Policy Committee changed its rules to allow firms to underwrite more high loan-to-value lending in July.   

However, Bellway said it would benefit from moves from Labour to ease planning restrictions “in the years ahead”. 

But it added that it currently “continues to experience delays to planning decisions as local authorities are taking time to adopt new local plans and the updated National Planning Policy Framework”. 

Bellway is one of the country’s major housebuilders along with Barratt Developments, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey.

Housebuilders have long urged Labour to reintroduce a new Help to Buy Scheme, which saw mainly FTBs assisted with an equity loan to buy new-build homes. 

This government programme helped buy 387,195 new-build homes with £24.7bn of equity loans, in the decade that it ran until 2023. Although this scheme still runs in Wales. 

However, critics of the scheme say it inflated the price of new homes and carried the danger of locking buyers into negative equity in the event of a housing downturn. 

Bellway’s update was otherwise upbeat, saying it completed 8,749 homes in the year to the end of July, up 14.3% on a year ago.  

Its average selling price was around £316,000, slightly ahead of expectations. 

The housebuilder added that it expects to build around 9,200 homes in the year ahead. 

Bellway chief executive Jason Honeyman said: “We have entered the new financial year with a healthy forward order book and outlet opening programme and, if market conditions remain stable, we are well-positioned to deliver further growth in full-year 2026.” 

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould welcomed Bellway’s intention to boost housebuilding, but added, “whether that pace of growth is enough to help the Labour government reach its goal for housing starts is another matter”.