The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) says the government’s kick-start fund is not helping the smaller house-builders it was designed to.

As OBAS supplies construction products to companies of all sizes, with many of our clients working on smaller sites, we've therefore taken a keen interest in how the scheme is working for our clients’ onsite.

The government shortlisted 165 housing developments across England to take a share of the £525m Builders Finance Fund, which is aimed at helping smaller building companies working on shovel-ready sites between 15 – 250 homes

So far it would appear that eight Taylor Wimpey sites have been selected to benefit from the state lending programme whilst Redrow, Mar City and Morgan Sindall are also set to benefit.

FMB chief executive Brian Berry said: “The Builders Finance Fund was originally trailed in the March Budget as ‘help for smaller builders’, but the 15 unit minimum threshold that has been applied has effectively excluded large numbers of small and micro firms that do not build to this scale.

“However, analysis of the shortlisted schemes reveals that over half of the schemes consist of more than 50 units which is a far cry from the small sites that the scheme was set up to help. A handful of firms, including some very large companies, are behind a third of the schemes shortlisted.”

Around 90% of the country’s building firms never get close to building sites of 15 or more units and ministers have said they will review the threshold to bid for the funding. Many of OBAS clients work on developments of between 5 and 8 units which may be a more useful threshold for the funding.