£4.6bn Paid Out To Support Wages Across Construction

The Government has paid out £4.6bn since March to support the wages of construction staff on furlough and self-employed workers laid off in the lockdown. Up to 1.48m construction staff and self-employed workers have received some kind of wages support during the coronavirus outbreak.

According to latest Government figures, so far 801,000 self-employed construction workers have received pay-outs from the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme, totalling over £2.8bn. Over the same period, more than 150,000 construction firms submitted claims for Government support for 680,000 furloughed staff. Read more on the Construction Enquirer website.

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2020/06/11/furlough-claims-for-construction-staff-reach-1-8bn/

Crisis Makes Sense When You Look At These Companies’ Obscene Profits

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has found that the four largest house building companies are doing so well, they’re planning an extra £6.6bn in shareholder payouts over the next five years. Between them, they made £2bn in pre-tax profits just last year. In addition, individual executive pay packages from salaries and share sales have gone into the multi-millions. Between 2011 and 2016, executives made the following amounts of money:

– Tony Pidgley from Berkeley – £94m

– Rob Perrins from Berkeley – £47m

– Jeff Fairburn from Persimmon – £8.5m

– Mike Killoran from Persimmon – £10m

– Peter Redfern from Taylor Wimpey – £24m

– James Jordan from Taylor Wimpey – £11m

– David Thomas from Barratt – £16m

– Steven Boyes from Barratt – £16m

The Berkeley and Persimmon executive pairs above also sit on shares worth £440m and £105m respectively. Read more on the Canary website.

Revealed: Housebuilders Sitting On 600,000 Plots Of Land

Britain’s biggest housebuilders possess enough land to create more than 600,000 new homes, an analysis by the Guardian has found, raising questions about whether they are doing enough to solve the housing crisis facing Britain. The nine housebuilders in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 hold 615,152 housing plots in their landbank, according to financial disclosures. This is four times the total number of homes built in Britain in the past year. Berkeley, Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – the four biggest companies in the industry – account for more than 450,000 of the plots. They are also sitting on £947m of cash and declared or issued more than £1.5bn in payouts to shareholders in 2015. Read more on the Guardian website.