Redrow, one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders, said that the Government is in danger of strangling its plans for more homes for first-time buyers.

Redrow was the first big housebuilder to take up a challenge two years ago from John Prescott, who was then the housing minister, to build £60,000 houses with its range of compact Debut Homes.

Delivering an 8 per cent rise in half-year revenue to £366.2 million, Neil Fitzsimmons, the chief executive, said that the company was on track to hit its target of building 500 Debut Homes by its June year-end.

However, he gave warning that national planning guidelines, expected to come into force next month, were likely to exclude Debut Homes bought by private purchasers from the new definition of “affordable housing”.

The guidelines could hamper Redrow’s ability to win approval for the number of Debut Homes it wanted to build to help to meet demand.

Mr Fitzsimmons said: “Disappointingly, the new planning guidelines appear to exclude low-cost open market housing from the definition of affordable housing. As a consequence, our ability to achieve our medium-term volume ambitions for Debut will depend on the response of local authorities to this new guidance.”

Redrow is targeting sales of another 800 Debut homes by June 2008, of which 700 plots have planning permission.

It was the first of the big housebuilders targeting the first-time buyer market to raise concerns over the new planning guidelines.

Barratt Developments was set to be the country’s biggest builder of low-cost compact homes since launching its iPad range last March with prices starting at £80,000.

Delivering half-year figures last week, Mark Clare, the Barratt chief executive, said that he was aiming to have built and sold about 2,500 iPads over the coming years.

In addition to those under construction or due to start this year, Barratt had 44 sites earmarked for 1,725 iPads “in the pipeline”, meaning that planning permission had not yet been won. A Barratt spokesman said that the company was monitoring the planning guidelines closely.

Meanwhile, George Wimpey was gearing up for an attack on the first-time buyer market with sales this year of about 400 compact G2 flats priced from £60,000.

Redrow’s pretax profits rose 1.7 per cent to £54.3 million in the first half to December 31. The dividend rose 80 per cent to 7.8p, reflecting 20 per cent underlying growth and a rebalancing of the interim and final dividend.

Losing the plot

-There is no price definition for what can pass muster as “affordable housing”. From April, local authorities must refer to a definition provided by Planning Policy Statement 3, which requires them to include social housing and so-called intermediate housing. The latter includes “shared-equity products, other low-cost homes for sale and intermediate rent”, but excludes “low-cost housing”.

-Duncan Fielding, planning partner with SJ Berwin, the City lawyer, said: “The guidelines tighten up the definition to make it more difficult for including sales of low-cost housing.’’

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