The operating environment for housebuilders is currently as challenging as its ever been and will prompt UK housing output to drop around 40% in the year ahead, according to the founder of Essex-based builder Weston Homes.

Bob Weston, who last week launched a new offsite panellised housebuilding business, British Offsite, to supply both Weston and the wider industry, said the conditions were caused by a combination of the market and “the most anti-housebuilding government we’ve ever had”.

Weston’s comments come after the UK’s largest housebuilder Barratt last week said its output was likely to fall up to 23% in the next year, and follows similar criticisms of the government by the likes of former Redrow boss Steve Morgan and Churchill chief executive Spencer McCarthy.