10 things the government should do to deliver on its housebuilding ambitions

According to housing experts, England needs to build a minimum 300,000 new homes each year to tackle its housing shortage. Aiming to deliver this, successive governments have, since 1990, unveiled no less than six housing strategies, six housebuilding targets and 16 major planning reforms. But none has got close to that 300,000 figure. So what can be done differently?

A new Institute for Government report, the latest in our series on chronic policy problems, sets out 10 principles for how the government can break with previous governments’ records and build the homes England needs.

1. Ensure housebuilding remains a consistent political priority led from the highest offices of government

Governments have claimed increasing housebuilding is a priority – but they have not followed through: they have not been prepared to expend political capital to stick with reforms when the going gets tough; senior ministers have not maintained focus and housing ministers have changed annually.

To change this, housebuilding has to become – and stay – a top long-term government priority, led from the top. Labour has started well with both the deputy prime minister and chancellor declaring their commitment. They need to maintain that commitment – and the prime minister should keep the housing minister in place for longer, ideally the whole parliament. 

2. Define what success looks like 

Governments have not articulated a comprehensive vision for what they want to achieve from their housebuilding programmes, and how they plan to get there. Without this clarity, reform programmes have lacked drive, direction and clear success metrics (beyond housebuilding numbers) and the industry has not had confidence in them as a basis for planning.

The government has promised to produce a long-term housing strategy. That needs to make clear what success looks like, with a 10-year vision underpinned by a robust five-year plan for delivery over this parliament. 

3. Reconcile housebuilding ambitions with other policy objectives

Too often other policies have stood in the way of the government’s ambitions for housing. Those are important too – but rather than let them become a block on development the government needs to work out upfront how it wants to reconcile potentially conflicting objectives.

4. Prioritise national housing targets over local objections

England’s planning system is one of the biggest barriers to housebuilding. Under successive governments, local vetoes on development have meant that not enough homes are granted planning permission to meet national targets. Reintroducing mandatory housing targets is an important start – but the government needs to ensure that it is not deterred when they face local opposition – even if it comes from its own MPs. There should be no repeat of caving into backbench pressure as past governments have done.

5. Plan for new housing where it is most needed, and consider how it will align with the government’s other growth and infrastructure plans

The national pattern of new housing has been poorly aligned with where it could deliver the most national benefit, in terms of tackling the most acute affordability problems, improving productivity and aligning with national infrastructure plans.

Housing targets play an important role in directing where new housing goes. The government has proposed a new standard method for calculating these, asking areas to grow proportional to their existing housing stock, with an additional uplift for areas where housing is least affordable. This should help direct new housing to where it is needed most. The government should also consider how its housing plans align with future infrastructure planning. It could consult bodies responsible for future infrastructure planning – like the National Infrastructure Commission - to identify risks and opportunities for national infrastructure planning arising from the pattern of its local housing targets.

6. Align new developments with local growth and infrastructure plans

Since the coalition government abolished regional spatial strategies, regional development has mostly been the result of individual plans from local planning authorities, who are often too small to make the necessary trade-offs to produce the best results for their regions as a whole.

The government has committed to reintroducing strategic planning, aiming to have every "functional economic area” (presumably in many cases combined authorities) covered by a strategic plan within the next five years. To be effective, those strategic plans should align new developments with local growth and infrastructure plans – and strategic planners should be allowed to redistribute housing targets across constituent authorities to produce the best outcomes. 

7. Ensure local areas share in the benefits of new housing

Public attitudes towards new developments are improving as appreciation of England’s housing problem grows, and the new government may face less political resistance to targets than previous administrations. But to address legitimate local concerns, a government aiming to sustain higher housebuilding over the long term should ensure that local communities share in the benefits of new housing projects (for instance, by making sure new developments come with local infrastructure improvements, and affordable housing that helps address local housing need). 

8. Equip the planning system to deliver effectively

Planning authorities are poorly equipped to deliver the new homes that England needs. They are under-resourced, struggling with recruitment and retention, and lack the capacity and capability to process their caseload within statutory timelines, especially as new regulations have made planning decisions more complex. Any government looking to accelerate housebuilding will need to ensure the planning system has enough capacity to not only manage its current caseload, but also process a higher volume of permissions in line with the government’s targets.

9. Support industry to develop the skills pipeline it needs to deliver

The UK suffers from shortages in construction workers. Every downturn in housebuilding leads to an exodus from the industry – 300,000 workers have left the sector since 2019 - and the industry is in a poor position to accelerate output to meet the government’s targets. Government should work with industry to develop a construction skills strategy, and consider stepping in to manage critical short-term shortages (for instance by changing visa requirements). The biggest difference the government can make is by giving certainty about future volumes to get the industry investing in its own skills pipeline.

10. Regularly review whether the market is delivering desired outcomes, and adjust if necessary

The government has made a good start – but there are many factors it cannot control and success is not a given. This is not a case of lighting the blue touch paper and standing back and watching this complex market deliver. It needs to keep progress under constant review and adjust its approach where necessary.