The Independent: "Bovis, doing exactly as it should, shows why we have a housing crisis"

"Outlook: The paradox highlights one of the many problems of leaving the housing demands of a growing and varied population to the cold logic of the free market"

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"If ever we needed telling, Bovis has confirmed it in black and white: Britain doesn’t have a hope of hitting the Government’s 200,000 annual housebuilding target. Ever.

"The reasons are legion. We don’t have enough brickies and plumbers, planning permission is hard to get, and the more we build, the more prohibitively pricey the materials become.

"Tutting and shaking its head like all good builders, Bovis cited all these usual factors. But it also raised another: the lack of available finance for its smaller peers to get new homes started.

"While the City is funding the likes of Bovis and Persimmon, banks, and even the government-funded schemes, are still demanding high rates of interest and onerous terms for the smaller independent players. And without them, we’ll never build the homes we need."