The Toxic Triangle of the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Housebuilding: A Review of the UK Housing Industry's Dilemma

The UK housing industry is currently facing a crisis owing to housing shortages. Nonetheless, the continued housing shortage has brought much public scrutiny towards the government's over-reliance on volume housebuilders and policy constraints on small and medium-sized housebuilders (SMEs). This study therefore identified the key barriers that currently limit the shared burden of housing delivery by SMEs and the state-of-the-art in related government policies. An integrative literature review on government and scholarly publications revealed that the role of UK SMEs has been diminished due to deep-rooted policy barriers on supply. The current planning system, access to finance and viable land availability were diagnosed as a "toxic triangle" of three-fold barriers, given they are inter-related and mutually reinforcing. Next, an integrative review of government policies for their influence on the toxic triangle revealed the need to focus on the opinions of SME builders as current policies have overlooked tailored solutions for different demands of SME categories. These findings could help to improve the UK government's ex-ante policies to eliminate the toxic triangle effects on SMEs' housing delivery.