CBP 7671

BRIEFING PAPER
Number 07671, 12 December 2018
Tackling the under-supply By Wendy Wilson

Cassie Barton
of housing in England
Contents:
1. How much new housing does
England need?
2. Trends in housing supply
3. Increasing supply in England:
barriers and solutions
4. Housing White Paper:
additional proposals
www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary

2 Tackling the under-supply of housing in England
Contents
Summary 3
1. How much new housing does England need? 7
1.1 Defining housing need 7
1.2 Estimating housing need 8
Household projections for England 8
Other estimates of need 10
1.3 Is new supply meeting housing need? 13
2. Trends in housing supply 14
2.1 Growth in housing supply 14
2.2 Components of new housing supply 15
2.3 Long-term trends in house building 18
Housing starts and completions 18
House building by type of developer 18
2.4 Profile of new builds in England 21
2.5 Expenditure on housing 22
3. Increasing supply in England: barriers and solutions 25
3.1 The local authority and housing association contribution 27
3.2 Land supply and capturing value 36
Release of public sector land for housing 40
Direct commissioning 44
New Towns and Garden Cities 45
3.3 Funding infrastructure 46
3.4 The planning system 49
Planning conditions 50
Section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy 52
Viability tests 54
Resourcing authorities’ planning capacity 56
Delivering a variety of sites for development 57
The duty to cooperate and housing market areas 58
Incentives to develop: speeding up and monitoring build-out rates 59
Better use of green belt land 65
3.5 Support for SME developers 68
3.6 The construction industry 70
Labour market and skills 70
Innovation in construction 71
The Farmer Review’s recommendations 2016 72
4. Housing White Paper: additional proposals 76
4.1 A standard method for calculating housing need 76
4.2 A housing delivery test 77
4.3 Build to rent 78
Cassie Barton Sections 1 and 2

Wendy Wilson Sections 3 and 4
Cover page image copyright Building site by Mark Philpott. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 /
image cropped.
3 Commons Library Briefing, 12 December 2018
Summary
Estimates have put the number of new homes needed in England at between 240,000
and 340,000 per year, accounting for new household formation and a backlog of existing
need for suitable housing. In 2017/18, the total housing stock in England increased by
around 222,000 homes. This was 2% higher than the year before – and the amount of
new homes supplied annually has been growing for several years – but is still lower than
estimated need.
Housing need manifests itself in a variety of ways, such as increased levels of
overcrowding, acute affordability issues, more young people living with their parents for
longer periods, impaired labour mobility resulting in businesses finding it difficult to recruit
and retain staff, and increased levels of homelessness.
The 2015 Government set out an ambition to deliver 1 million net additions to the
housing stock by the end of the Parliament, which was expected to be in 2020. Net
additions include, for example, conversions and changes of use. Critics said that the
figure did not take account of the backlog of housing need. The House of Lords Select
Committee on Economic Affairs concluded in Building More Homes (2016), that the
target “was not based on a robust analysis” and went on to recommend that the housing
crisis required the development of at least 300,000 new homes annually “for the
foreseeable future.” In addition to questioning whether a target of 1 million homes is
ambitious enough, there is some doubt over whether even this number is achievable.
The current Conservative Government was elected in 2017 with a manifesto pledge to
meet the 2015 commitment to deliver 1 million homes by the end of 2020 and to
“deliver half a million more by the end of 2022.” The manifesto said that, if elected,
the Government would deliver on the reforms proposed in the Housing White Paper
(February 2017). The Autumn Budget 2017 set out an ambition “to put England on
track to deliver 300,000 new homes a year.” In January 2018, the Department for
Communities and Local Government (DCLG) was renamed the Ministry of Housing,
Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to reflect the Government’s “renewed
focus to deliver more homes.” The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) was
relaunched as Homes England on 11 January 2018:
By bringing together their existing planning expertise and new land buying powers,
the new agency will play a major role in securing land in areas where people want to
live, support smaller and more innovative house builders into the market and resource
brownfield sites from across the country to deliver homes for families.
There is consensus around the long-term under-supply housing and the need to address
this, but there is less agreement within the industry about how best to achieve the
necessary step-change in supply. Commentators agree that there is no ‘silver bullet’ and
call for a range of solutions across several policy areas. The 2017 UK Housing Review
Briefing Paper (September 2017) argues that while supply is of critical importance, “so
is the rather more neglected issue of affordability, in both the private and social
housing sectors.” The Resolution Foundation has said that a greater proportion of
genuinely affordable homes to rent and own will be needed “to make housing less of a
living standards burden for families.” In the foreword to the June 2017 IPPR report, What
more can be done to build the homes we need? Sir Michael Lyons said: “We would stress
that it is not just the number built but also the balance of tenures and affordability which
need to be thought through for an effective housing strategy.” This is echoed in research
commissioned by the National Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis from Heriot-Watt
University, which has identified a need for 340,000 homes each year to 2031 of which
145,000 “must be affordable homes”.
The 2015 Government acted to stimulate housing supply through a variety of schemes.
These schemes were referred to in the Government’s response to Building More Homes
which acknowledged that “we have much more to do as a country to build more homes
and that the Government has a role to play in making sure our housing market works for
everyone.” February 2017 saw the publication of the Housing White paper Fixing our
broken housing market, which set out “a comprehensive package of reform to increase
housing supply and halt the decline in housing affordability.” The White Paper identified a
threefold problem of “not enough local authorities planning for the homes they need;
housebuilding that is simply too slow; and a construction industry that is too reliant on a
small number of big players.” The White Paper focused on four main areas:
• Building the right homes in the right places.
• Building them faster.
• Widening the range of builders and construction methods.
• ‘Helping people now’ including investing in new affordable housing and preventing
homelessness.
Consultation on proposals in chapters 1 and 2 of the White Paper closed on 2 May 2017.
A separate consultation exercise on Planning and affordable housing for Build to Rent was
launched alongside the White Paper, the outcome of which was published in August
2017. A summary of responses to the White Paper and the Government’s view on the
way forward was published on 5 March 2018. This date also saw the launch of
consultation on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and
further consultation on reforming developer contributions to affordable housing and
infrastructure. A revised NPPF together with amended planning guidance was published
on 24 July 2018. The Government response to reforming developer contributions was
published in October 2018.
This briefing paper considers key trends in housing supply in the UK and goes on to focus
on some of the of the key barriers and potential solutions to increasing supply in England.
The paper takes account of the key measures announced by the 2015 Government in
Fixing our broken housing market and subsequent developments.
The barriers and solutions cover issues including:
• The potential contribution of the local authority and housing association sectors.
The delivery of more than 200,000 homes per year in England has, since 1939, only
happened largely as a result of major public sector (local authority) housebuilding
programmes.
• How to ensure that more land suitable for development is brought forward at a
reasonable price, including how more public land can brought forward more
quickly.
• How to properly resource local authority planning departments and tackle a
planning system that is widely seen as slow, costly and complex. There is some
agreement on the need to incentivise authorities and communities to approve
development, and for measures to encourage developers to build-out permissioned
land without unnecessary delays.
• Consideration of how essential infrastructure to support housing development can
be funded.
• How to encourage and support more small and medium sized building firms into a
market that is currently dominated by a small number of large companies.
• How to ensure that the construction industry is in a fit state to deliver the
housebuilding capacity that England requires. The Government commissioned
Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model (2016) concluded that “many
features of the industry are synonymous with a sick, or even a dying patient.”
Government action to stimulate housing supply can be found in Library briefing paper
06416: Stimulating housing supply - Government initiatives (England).
Other relevant Library papers include:
• What is affordable housing? (September 2018)
• What next for planning in England? The National Planning Policy Framework
(October 2018)
Statistics on housing supply
Tables showing the data used in this briefing paper, as well as house building statistics for
all UK countries, are available for download at this link or from the landing page for this
briefing.
The Library has also produced an interactive tool, Housing supply for local authorities, for
comparing trends in local housing supply in England.
1. How much new housing does

England need?
Summary
• Household growth is one factor affecting overall housing need. The
number of new households in England is projected to grow by 159,000 per
year, based on current trends.
• The backlog of existing need for suitable, affordable accommodation is
often cited as another pressure on housing need, as is demand for more
space by households that can afford it.
• There has been a range of research into the amount of new housing
needed, with estimates as high as 340,000 new homes per year.
• There is geographic variation in household growth and housing need, with
more need in London and the south of England.
• New supply has been lower than estimated need in recent years.
1.1 Defining housing need

There is no strict definition of housing need, but it can be understood
as the amount of housing required for all households to live in
accommodation that meets a certain normative standard.
Projected growth in the number of households is often used as a proxy
for housing need, but this measure doesn’t give the whole picture.
Projections don’t attempt to accurately forecast future changes, and
there is also an existing backlog of need – for example, households
living in unsuitable or overcrowded accommodation. 1
Housing need is different from housing demand, the amount of
housing space that households will choose to buy, given their
preferences and ability to pay. 2 Many households take up more housing
space than they ‘need’, if they can afford to – for example, by living in a
house with a spare bedroom or buying a second home. Dame Kate
Barker’s evidence to the Treasury Select Committee’s inquiry into
housing policy emphasised the role of income growth in driving housing
demand:
Indeed, house prices respond a lot to income growth because—
this point is made in the review but not brought out enough—
when people get richer they want more space. If you simply work
on household projections then you will not supply as much space
as people would like, given their incomes, and the result of that is
that people with money do get the space they want. People
without money do not get the space. 3
1
DCLG, November 2010. Estimating housing need.
2
Ibid.
3
HC 861, 7 December 2016, Q2
1.2 Estimating housing need

Household projections for England
Projections of the number of households that will form in future are
often used as a baseline for talking about housing need.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for producing
projections of the number of households in England. According to
projections released in September 2018, the number of households in
England is projected to rise from 22.9 million in 2016 to 26.9 million in
2041 – an average increase of around 159,000 households per year. 4
These figures do not attempt to model the effect of future changes –
for example, they don’t try to account for the impact on migration of
Britain leaving the EU. The projections make assumptions, based upon
past trends, about how much the population will grow and the size of
households that people will live in.
Source: ONS, Household projections for England: 2016-based

Map © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. House of Commons Library
100040654 (2018)
4
ONS, Household projections in England: 2016-based, 18 September 2018
Household projections are not uniform across England. The map on the
previous page shows projected change for each local authority as a
percentage change from its 2016 population. Growth is projected to be
higher in London, the South East and parts of the Midlands and lower in
the North. The number of households is projected to fall in three
Northern local authorities (Barrow-in-Furness, Copeland and
Richmondshire).
Change from previous projections
Before the September 2018 release, household projections were The Commons
published by MHCLG. The previous set of projections published by Library Insight
article Housing
MHCLG were higher, putting the average increase in households at
targets: Can we
210,000 per year. 5 A number of methodological changes caused this
predict future
difference. 6 Two key changes were: need? explains
• New, lower population projections were used. The 2016-based changes in the
population projections assume lower numbers of births and less projections and
net international migration, as well as slower improvements in life their effects on
expectancy, than the previous set. 7 local targets.
• The ONS made different assumptions about the rate of new

household formation. The latest projections are informed by more
recent, short-term trends in the average household size. The
former projections were informed by trends from 1971-2011,
during which time the average household size declined. For
several reasons relating to data quality, the new projections only
look at trends from 2001-11. The average household size was
relatively stable during that period, so the new projections assume
less new household formation than the previous set.
A number of factors have been suggested for the lower-than-expected
growth in households between 2001 and 2011, including families
choosing to keep living in one household where they otherwise might
not have done (e.g. young adults continuing to live with their parents).
The recession has been suggested as a cause for this, as has the
constrained supply of suitable, affordable housing during this period. 8
Additionally, levels of immigration were higher between 2001 and 2011
than previously, and research suggests that recent migrants tend to live
in larger household groups than long-term UK residents. 9
Local planning authorities’ housing supply targets are based in part on
the latest available household projections – this has been the case since
the launch of the new National Planning Policy Framework in July 2018.
The government launched a consultation in October 2018 which stated
that the lower household projections did not affect its existing target of
building 300,000 homes per year. The consultation also states that the
5
MHCLG, 2014-based household projections in England, 2014 to 2039
6
See ONS, Methodology used to produce household projections for England: 2016-
based, 20 September 2018
7
ONS, National population projections: 2016-based statistical bulletin, 26 October
2017
8
E.g. by A.E. Holmans in Housing need and effective demand in England (2014) and
New estimates of housing demand and need in England, 2011 to 2031.
9
A.E. Holmans in Housing need and effective demand in England (2014)
government is seeking, in the longer term, to review the formula that

determines local targets so that it supports this goal. 10
The consultation document cites several reasons for maintaining the
target. It argues that new household formation is constrained by
housing supply, and that this is part of the reason for the fall in the
projections; that there has been historic under-delivery of housing which
needs remedying; that increased supply allows local authorities to be
more responsive; and that low supply has led to declining affordability. 11
The consultation document also notes that:
Population changes are only one aspect of the driver for housing
supply. Rising incomes, changing social preferences and factors
such as real interest rates and credit availability contribute to
demand for housing.
The document concludes that “there is wider consensus that a
significant increase in housing delivery compared to current levels is
required”. 12 Other estimates of housing need are discussed below. See
section 4.1 for more detail on housing supply targets for local planning
authorities.
Other estimates of need
Independent estimates of housing need have attempted to account for
future trends in household formation and migration, as well as an
existing backlog of need.
The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) made estimates in
2013, based on the most recent available projections at the time (the
2011-based projections from MHCLG). 13 The alternative estimates
adjusted MHCLG’s projections by assuming that the economy would
improve, causing new household formation to increase. Migration was
assumed to follow similar trends to 2001-11. 14 This led to an estimate
that 240-245,000 homes would have to be built in each year to meet
‘newly arising demand and need’.
Shelter in 2015 put forward a similar figure based on a review of the
literature (the TCPA is cited as a key source). They estimate that around
250,000 new homes would be needed in each year to keep up with
new household formation, and add:
Demand is not uniform across the country, with some areas
experiencing much higher population growth. Unsurprisingly, the
highest levels of projected household growth over the next
decade are in London and the South East, with high growth also
expected in the South West and Yorkshire and Humber.
10
MHCLG, Technical consultation on updates to national planning policy and
guidance, 26 October 2018, p11
11
Ibid., p8
12
Ibid., p9
13
A.E. Holmans (2013), New estimates of housing demand and need in England, 2011
to 2031.
14
In reality, migration is now higher than it was in 2011 (see ONS, Migration Statistics
Quarterly Report, December 2016). Projections do not take account of future policy
changes affecting migration, e.g. as a result of the UK exiting the European Union.
Years of undersupply have also left a backlog of housing need,

manifested in concealed households, rising overcrowding,
homelessness and the rise in young adults living with their
parents. The most recent estimates suggest the backlog may be as
large as two million households. To clear this, England would
need to build well over 250,000 homes each year for many years,
or change the distribution of the existing housing stock - or most
likely both. 15
One of the stated reasons for the government’s target of supplying
300,000 homes per year is that this will directly reduce affordability
pressures. When giving evidence to the Housing, Communities and
Local Government Select Committee on 12 March 2018, the former
Housing Minister, Dominic Raab, said:
First, the 300,000 target by the mid-2020s is the point at which
we think that the affordability of homes will come down for the
nurse, the teacher, and those on low and middle incomes, and
particularly for those trying to get on the housing ladder for the
first time. 16
The 2017 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper (September 2017) argues
that while supply is of critical importance, “so is the rather more
neglected issue of affordability, in both the private and social housing
sectors.” 17 The Review argues that “we cannot assume more supply is
the sole answer to the problem” and goes on:
Indeed, as the evidence to the Redfern Review from Oxford
Economics reminds us, it is unlikely to bring house prices down
except in the very long term and with sustained high output of
new homes relative to household growth. Even boosting (UK)
housing supply to 310,000 homes per annum in their model only
brings a five per cent fall in the baseline forecast of house prices.
Oxford Economics says this has ‘important implications for a policy
debate that has focused heavily on supply as both the cause of
the problem of high house prices and its solution.’ 18
More recent research has called for increased supply of affordable
housing to meet affordability needs. Research commissioned by the
National Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis from Heriot-Watt
University has identified a need for 340,000 homes each year in England
to 2031 of which 145,000 “must be affordable homes”. The press
release for the research breaks down the type of affordable homes
needed:
• 90,000 should be for social rent
• 30,000 should be for intermediate affordable rent
• 25,000 should be for shared ownership 19
The full research report has yet to be published, which means it is not
possible to describe or evaluate the methodology behind these figures.
15
Shelter and KPMG (2015), Building the homes we need: a programme for the 2015
government, pp19-20
16
Oral Evidence: MHCLG Housing Priorities, HC 830 Q3, 12 March 2018
17
2017 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper, Steve Wilcox, John Perry and Peter
Williams, September 2017
18
2017 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper, Steve Wilcox, John Perry and Peter
Williams, September 2017
19
NHF Press Release, England short of 4 million homes, 18 May 2018
However, an article in the 2018 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper gives

further background:
The current backlog of households with housing need is four
million in England or 4.7 million across Great Britain (GB). We
cannot meet all these needs instantaneously and it will take time
to build up an effective programme to address existing and
expected needs and demands. Fifteen years is a reasonable
timeframe.
Over that time horizon, the total level of new housebuilding
required is estimated at around 340,000 per year for England
(380,000 for GB). These numbers include significant allowances
for suppressed household formation by younger adults resulting
from previous inadequate supply and unaffordability, as well
necessary provision for more demolitions and vacancies (including
some fallout from Grenfell). This is why the numbers are
significantly above official household projections. 20
The article also addresses the geographic distribution of housing need:
While size (population) of a country/region is a factor, the increase
should be skewed towards regions where the pressures are
greatest, currently the South and London. The exact optimal
balance between ‘within-London’, ‘near-to-London’ and the
‘Greater South East’ is an issue for careful consideration. In this
exercise we constrain London to a reasonable estimate of its
capacity to build additional housing each year, and thereby accept
that a higher number will have to be in the South of England. 21
Other commentators have also drawn attention to geographic variation.
A research report by the consultancy Residential Analysts uses a range
of indicators of housing demand at local authority level to explore
trends across the country. The report measures lack of supply using
indicators including affordability, overcrowding and population growth,
and concludes that “while the lack of supply is frequently assumed to
be a national issue, it is very much a London and South East problem
with some other localised hotspots”. 22 Other indicators are used to
assess areas of lower demand:
To identify where weak demand is most severe we have created a
ranking based on three sub-categories. These are: weak
demographic demand where the population is ageing and people
are leaving, weak housing market demand where house price and
sales activity are weak, and weak economic demand where job
opportunities are poor and incomes are low with limited growth.
The local authorities most affected by weak demand are typically
found in Wales, the north of England, south west Scotland, and
Northern Ireland. The underlying causes for these high rankings
vary. […]
New supply is not a panacea for these markets. Indeed, it may
even accelerate decline if the more affluent residents leave
existing urban areas for new build estates. 23
20
2018 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper, October 2018, Mark Stephens, John Perry,
Steve Wilcox, Peter Williams and Gillian Young , p7
21
Ibid.
22
Residential Analysts, A housing crisis? More like a series of local crises needing local
solutions, October 2018, pp 5-6
23
Ibid., p13
1.3 Is new supply meeting housing need?

Section 2 discusses trends in housing supply in more detail. The key
measure of housing supply in England is MHCLG’s net housing supply
series. This measures the total gain in the number of homes in each
financial year, factoring in gains from conversions and change-of-use as
well as new build.
The chart below compares net supply in each year since 2006-07 with
household growth (estimated as part of the ONS’ latest projections) and
the range of estimates of housing need discussed above. Net supply has
been lower than household growth in most years and it has consistently
been lower than the broad range of estimated overall need.
NET HOUSING SUPPLY, HOUSEHOLD GROWTH AND ESTIMATED

NEED (ENGLAND)
400
300 Range of estimated need

Net supply
200
Household
100 growth
0
2006-07 2008-09 2010-11 2012-13 2014-15 2016-17
Sources: MHCLG, Live Table 120; ONS, Household projections for England: 2016-
based; estimated need referenced in this section.
2. Trends in housing supply

2.1 Growth in housing supply
There were approximately 27.7 million residential dwellings in
GROWTH IN HOUSING STOCK
Great Britain on 31st March 2016. Of these, 23.7 million were in
10-year periods, Great Britain
England, 1.4 million were in Wales and 2.6 million were in
Scotland. 24
1951-61 +18%
The total housing supply increased by 94% over the sixty years
between 1951 and 1961. As the chart on the right shows, there
1961-71 +16%
was more growth in the housing stock in 1950s and 1960s than
in later decades. The housing stock in Great Britain increased by
1971-81 +11%
18% between 1951 and 1961, and 16% between 1961 and
1971. By contrast, the stock increased by 8% between 2001 and
2011. 1981-91 +10%
Change between the 1991 and 2011 censuses can be examined 1991-2001 +8%
in finer detail (see map, below). In both England and the UK the
overall increase was 16%, but many regions saw less growth
2001-11 +8%
than this – the North East (9%) and the North West (11%) had
the lowest growth. The South West had the largest increase in
Source: MHCLG, Live Tables 104, 106
dwelling stock in England (22%), while Northern Ireland had the
and 107
largest in the UK (32%).
GROWTH IN THE NUMBER OF DWELLINGS, 1951 to 2011

UK, nations and regions
Number of dwellings Change
(thousands) 1951 to Change 1991 to
1951 1991 2011 2011 2011
England 11,678 19,671 22,814 95% 16%
North East .. 1,072 1,164 .. 9%
North West .. 2,792 3,111 .. 11%
Yorkshire & the Humber .. 2,021 2,294 .. 14%
East Midlands .. 1,634 1,961 .. 20%
West Midlands .. 2,079 2,358 .. 13%
East of England .. 2,093 2,520 .. 20%
London .. 2,912 3,318 .. 14%
South East .. 3,099 3,683 .. 19%
South West .. 1,968 2,403 .. 22%
Wales 711 1,184 1,384 95% 17%

Scotland 1,375 2,160 2,495 81% 16%
Northern Ireland 354 573 759 114% 32%
UK 14,118 23,588 27,452 94% 16%
Source: MHCLG, Live Tables 104, 106, 107, 108 and 109.
.. = data not available.
24
MHCLG, Live Tables 104, 106 and 107
2.2 Components of new housing supply

This section looks at changes in the different components that have
contributed to new housing supply in England. The box below clarifies
the different statistical sources used in this section.
Which housebuilding series?

MHCLG publishes two separate time series on housing: a quarterly publication
that covers new builds only and an annual series covering overall net supply of
housing.
The annual net supply series covers new builds, conversions, change of use,
demolitions and other changes in the dwelling stock. See below for more on
how these factors contribute to net supply.
The quarterly series covers new builds only, but its figures are generally lower
than the new-build figures given in the annual net supply series. Since 2006-
07, it has recorded about 15% fewer dwellings than the annual series.
MHCLG describes the annual series as ‘the primary and most comprehensive
measure of housing supply’, while the quarterly series is a ‘leading indicator’ of
the trend in supply. The quarterly series has some other advantages: it covers a
longer time-span, provides a breakdown by tenure and has figures for the
whole of the UK. For these reasons, the quarterly series is used in this briefing
paper when a comparison of building by time, tenure or geography is likely to
be useful.
COMPARING HOUSING SUPPLY MEASURES

Thousands of dwellings, England
Net additional dwellings

200 (annual series)
New builds (annual

100 series)
New builds (quarterly

0 series)
2006-07 2011-12 2016-17
Sources: MHCLG, Live Table 120 (annual series), Live Table 209 (quarterly series)
Recent trends in England

In 2017-18, England’s housing stock increased by 222,190 homes.
Change in dwelling stock is not just a product of building new houses.
Conversions and change of use can add to the dwelling stock, while
demolitions and other damage also reduce it.
The chart overleaf shows trends in the components of net supply since
2006-07 in more detail. New building has accounted for less of the net
total in recent years, as change of use from non-residential to residential
property has become more common. Additions through change of use
grew by 65% between 2013-14 and 2014-15, and continued to rise
over the next two years. However, change-of-use completions fell by
20% in 2017-18.
The growth in change-of-use conversions is due to extensions to

permitted development rights (a right to develop without the need to
apply for planning permission). Permitted development rights were
temporarily extended to include office to residential change of use in
2013, and made permanent in April 2016.
COMPONENTS OF NET SUPPLY OF HOUSING

Thousands of dwellings, England
300
Net additional dwellings

200
New building
100
Net change-of-use
0
Net conversions
Demolitions
-100
2006-07 2011-12 2016-17
Source: MHCLG, Live Table 120
Notes: The net additional dwellings total also includes adjustments based on the
2011 Census, and a small number of gains labelled as ‘other’.
Get housing supply data for your area

The Library has published an online dashboard that provides housing supply
statistics for local authorities in England. The dashboards shows current
housing stock by tenure, components of net supply in the area, and new
supply of affordable housing.
Find the dashboard at commonslibrary.parliament.uk/local-data
How does this compare with past trends?

Historical data shows how the components of change have changed
across the 20th and 21st centuries. The graphic overleaf summarises the
trends.
Before 1980, the net increase in housing stock was generally lower than
the number of houses completed because of high levels of demolition
activity. Losses due to enemy action also played a role during WWII,
although overall net changed remained marginally positive. The 1960s
saw more demolition activity – mostly slum clearance – and more
building than any point previously.
Since 1980, the net increase in housing stock has tended to be higher
than the number of completions as activity has shifted away from
demolition and towards conversion of existing properties.
There was a net gain of 222,190 dwellings in 2017-18: higher than the
estimated average for the seventies, despite the seventies having more
new-build completions per year. This is partly because there were
considerably more demolitions in the seventies. Additionally, change of
use from non-residential into residential property has accounted for an
increasing proportion of new housing supply. Change of use produced
29,720 new dwellings in 2017-18 compared to 20,150 in 2006-07. 25
Sources: A.E. Holmans, Historical Statistics of Housing in Great Britain, Table B.17;
MHCLG, Live Table 120
Notes: Holmans reports the total number of dwellings for each time period; this chart
shows the average per year. ‘Slum clearance’ refers to demolitions carried out by local
authorities using specific powers for removing unfit dwellings under the Housing Act
1930 and Housing Repairs and Rents Act 1954.
25
Source: MHCLG, Live Table 120
2.3 Long-term trends in house building

Housebuilding is the main driver of change in overall
housing supply, although other factors are involved HOUSE BUILDING, UK 1934-2017
(see Components of new housing supply, above). Thousands of dwellings
500
Housing starts and completions 400
The first chart on the right shows trends in
300
housebuilding in the UK since 1935. Housebuilding
200
recovered after dropping substantially during WWII,
100
reaching peak levels in the late 1960s (the highest
0
number of completions was 425,830 in 1968). 1934 1954 1974 1994 2014
Housebuilding has seen an overall decline since then,
with the most recent drop taking place after the 2008 Sources: B.R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics;
financial crisis. 2013 had the smallest number of MHCLG, Live Table 246
completions since 1946, but housebuilding has Notes: Total incorporates some financial year
data. See data download for full notes.
increased year-on-year since then with completions in
2017 higher than the number in 2008. HOUSING STARTS & COMPLETIONS,
Housing completions figures don’t instantaneously UK 1969-70 to 2016-17
reflect changes to policy or the economic climate, Thousands of dwellings
because the house building process takes time and is 400
influenced by multiple factors. Trends in housing starts Starts
tend to be starker. For example, the financial crisis
300 Completions
caused housing starts to fall by 46% between
2007/08 and 2009/09, whereas completions
decreased more gradually over the following years. 200
House building by type of developer

100
The chart overleaf shows housing completions broken
down by type of developer: private enterprise, local
authorities and housing associations. The annotations 0
show some of the trends and policies that shaped the 1969-70 1989-90 2009-10
number and type of homes being built. Source: MHCLG, Live Tables 208 and 209
The type of developer building a property doesn’t
always correspond to the property’s final use. For example, homes built
by private enterprise may end up being let in the social rented sector.
The proportion of homes built by the social housing sector has changed
considerably since 1945. The subsequent charts show trends in the
proportion of dwellings built by local authorities and housing
associations in the post-war period.
Statistics on trends in the tenure of existing housing stock are available
in the Library briefing paper Home ownership and renting:
demographics (CBP 7706).
HOUSE BUILDING BY TYPE OF DEVELOPER: ENGLAND AND WALES, 1923 TO 2017
Private enterprise Housing associations Local authorities
0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

1923
1928
1933
World War II
substantially reduced
1938 housebuilding.
1943 Housing (Financial and Misc. Provisions) Act 1946, New

Towns Act 1946 and Town and Country Planning Act
1947 encouraged publicly-funded housebuilding.
1948
Housing Act 1952 increased the annual subsidy
for local authority building.
1953
Housing Subsidies Act 1956 revised
subsidies to focus on slum clearance
1958 and redevelopment of high rise blocks.
Housing Acts 1961 and

1963 1964 and Housing
Subsidies Act 1967 used
subsidies to encourage
1968
further slum clearance and
area improvement. New
build led to industrialised
1973
building systems.
1978 Housing Rents and Subsidies Act

1975 consolidated subsidies and
added some new ones.
1983
1979: New government acted to cut
public expenditure for housing.
1988
Housing Act 1988 shifted
1993 funding away from local
authorities towards housing
associations.
1998
2003
2008 2008: start of financial crisis
2013
Sources: B.R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics; MHCLG, Live Tables 244 and 245
Notes: Data is for financial years from 1923/24 to 1944/45, then calendar years. See
data download for full notes.
Housebuilding by local authorities has declined substantially across the

UK. The proportion of homes built by local authorities peaked in the
1940s and 1950s in Great Britain. In England, the peak was 87% in
1950. In Northern Ireland, the peak came later, in 1977 – unlike the rest
of the UK, housing associations were already contributing to a
substantial proportion of housebuilding immediately after the war.
By the early 1980s local authority housebuilding made up less than a
quarter of the total across the UK. Building by housing associations
increased, however, and in 2017 made up 17% of all completions
across the UK.
In all nations, the overall proportion of building by the social sector
increased relative to the private sector in the years following the
financial crisis. The private sector experienced a greater drop in the
volume of completions during this period.
PROPORTION OF NEW HOMES BUILT BY SOCIAL HOUSING PROVIDERS

England
100%
Local authorities
Housing associations
50%
0%
1946 1956 1966 1976 1986 1996 2006 2016
Wales
100%
Local authorities
50%
0%
1946 1956 1966 1976 1986 1996 2006 2016
Scotland
100%
Local authorities
50%
0%
1946 1956 1966 1976 1986 1996 2006 2016
Northern Ireland
100%
Local authorities
50%
0%
1949 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 2009
Source: MHCLG, Live Tables 244, 245, 246 and 247
2.4 Profile of new builds in England

The English Housing Survey (EHS) provides data on the characteristics of
new dwellings built in England (i.e. those built during or after 2005).
According to the estimates for 2014, new-builds are more likely to be
flats (44% are, compared to 18% of older dwellings). They also tend to
be smaller. Over half (54%) of new-builds have one or two bedrooms,
compared to 37% of older dwellings. The total number of habitable
rooms in a new-build is also likely to be lower: 44% of new homes had
three or fewer habitable rooms compared to 23% of older homes.
Floor space is generally lower for new-builds in the owner-occupied and
private rented sectors. However, new-builds which are currently in the
social rented sector tend to have more floor space than older social
rented homes.
In general, new-builds are more likely to be let by a housing association
and less likely to be let by a local authority. They are also more likely to
be rented privately and less likely to be owner-occupied compared to
older dwellings.
HOUSING STOCK PROFILE BY AGE

England, 2014
New dwellings Old dwellings

(2005+) (pre-2005) Mean floor area (m2) by current tenure
Dwelling type New dwellings 87

Terrace 24% 30% Owner occupied 98
Semi-detached 13% 28% Private rented 72
Detached 19% 23% Social rented 73
Flat 44% 18% Old dwellings 94
Owner occupied 107
Number of bedrooms
Private rented 77
1 14% 10%
Social rented 67
2 40% 27%
3 24% 43%
4 or more 22% 20% Source: MHCLG, English Housing
Survey 2014-15: Housing stock
report, Annex Tables 2.1, 2.3 and 2.4
Number of habitable rooms
3 or less 44% 23%
4 16% 22%
5 16% 29%
6 or more 23% 26%
Current tenure
Owner occupied 57% 63%
Private rented 24% 19%
Local authority 1% 8%
Housing association 18% 10%
2.5 Expenditure on housing

While it is difficult to produce a consistent estimate of public spending
on new housing supply, figures on broader expenditure on housing and
related areas are available from the Treasury’s Public Expenditure
Statistical Analyses (PESA).
PESA records spending by the UK government on ‘housing and
community amenities’ – a category that includes spending on items
such as water supply, street lighting and planning. However, the bulk of
spending in this category is on ‘housing development’, including
building, improvements, land acquisition and administration. Housing
development accounted for 57% of housing and community amenities
spending in 2017-18.
PESA’s longest time series covers spending on housing and community
amenities in the UK. As the chart below shows, spending on housing
and community amenities increased fairly steadily from 1998-99
onwards, reaching a peak of £18.6bn in 2009-10. 26 Spending then
began to decline, averaging £10.6bn between 2012-13 and 2016-17.
Spending increased by 15% between 2016-17 and 2017-18, rising from
£10.5bn to £12.1bn.
Data on housing development spending is only available for 2013-14
onwards. £6.9bn was spent in 2017-18, an increase of 32% on 2016-
17.
SPENDING ON HOUSING & COMMUNITY AMENITIES AND HOUSING

DEVELOPMENT (UK, £bn 2017-18 prices)
20
15 Housing & community

amenities
10
Of which, housing
5
development
0
1998-99 2003-04 2008-09 2013-14
Source: HM Treasury, PESA 2018, Tables 4.3 and 5.2
The table overleaf shows regional expenditure on housing and

community amenities, including per capita expenditure. The most recent
data available is for 2015-16. Per capita spending was highest in
London (£218) and the North East (£190).
26
All spending in this section is given in 2017-18 prices. Adjustments made using the
Treasury’s GDP deflators for October 2018.
IDENTIFIABLE EXPENDITURE ON HOUSING & COMMUNITY AMENITIES

England and regions, 2016-17
Total (£ million) £ per head

London £1,793 £203
North East £484 £183
West Midlands £811 £138
Yorkshire and the Humber £753 £138
East Midlands £601 £126
East of England £678 £110
North West £790 £109
South East £868 £96
South West £430 £77
England £7,206 £130
Source: HM Treasury, PESA 2018, Table 9.10; ONS, mid-year population estimates
for mid-2017 via nomisweb.co.uk
Comparison with Housing Benefit expenditure

Comparisons have been made between the Government’s investment in
housing supply and its expenditure on Housing Benefit. For example, in
a 2014 report Shelter commented:
Housing benefit is widely recognised as having facilitated a switch
from supply side to demand side subsidies. The period following
1975 saw a move away from investment in bricks and mortar with
a corresponding rise in expenditure on housing benefit. This was
not an accidental shift. Successive governments remained
committed to the idea that support should be targeted at
individuals rather than bricks and mortar investment to increase
the supply of housing. 27
It is possible to draw an approximate comparison between Housing
Benefit expenditure and housing expenditure as recorded in PESA.
However, there are some limitations to this analysis:
• The geographical extent of the two sources is different. PESA
statistics cover all spending in the UK. Housing Benefit
expenditure recorded by the Department for Work and Pensions
(DWP) covers Great Britain.
• As discussed above, PESA statistics cover spending in a broad
range of areas related to housing and community development,
and not just the development of housing stock.
The chart overleaf shows how spending in the two areas compares.
Although spending on both Housing Benefit and housing and
community amenities increased during the 1990s and 2000s, the gap
between the two narrowed. Housing Benefit expenditure was 2.3 times
higher than housing and community amenities expenditure in 1999-00;
by 2010-11 the ratio had fallen to 1.6.
27
Shelter, 2014, Bricks or Benefits?, p.9
After 2010-11, decreased spending on housing and community

amenities coincided with an increase in Housing Benefit expenditure,
meaning that by 2016-17 the ratio was 2.3. Spending on housing
development was 4.5 times higher than spending on Housing Benefit in
2016-17. In 2017-18, a combination of increased spending on housing
development and decreased spending on Housing Benefit caused this
ratio to fall to 3.2.
RATIO OF HOUSING BENEFIT SPENDING (GB) TO OTHER HOUSING

SPENDING (UK)
5
4 Housing
3 development
2
Housing & community
1 amenities
0
1998-99 2003-04 2008-09 2013-14
Sources: HM Treasury, PESA 2018, Tables 4.3 and 5.2; DWP, Benefit expenditure
and caseload tables, Outturn and forecast: Autumn budget 2018, Table 1a; HM
Treasury, GDP deflators at market prices
3. Increasing supply in England:

barriers and solutions
Box 1: Manifesto commitments General Election 2017
Conservative Party: A commitment to meet the 2015 commitment to deliver a million homes by the
end of 2020 and deliver half a million more by the end of 2022. The Manifesto referred to the
implementation of proposals in the Housing White Paper (February 2017).
Labour Party: A commitment to invest to build over one million new homes over the Parliament. By
the end of the Parliament councils and housing associations would be building at least 100,000 homes
a year.
Liberal Democrats: A commitment to build 300,000 homes per year by 2022.
Green Party: A commitment to build affordable, zero carbon homes, including 100,000 social rented
homes each year by 2022.
UKIP: A focus on factory-build modular homes which, together with a traditional home building
programme “could build another one million homes by 2022.”
Although there is consensus around the long-term under-supply of

There is no ‘silver
housing and the need to address this, there is less agreement within the bullet’ that will
industry about how best to achieve the necessary step-change in supply. increase housing
Commentators agree that there is no ‘silver bullet’ and call for a range supply. A range of
of solutions across several policy areas. For example, the UK Housing policy responses is
Review 2015 called for “a comprehensive housing strategy” with required.
“actions coordinated and sustained over at least a decade.” 28 Shelter
and KPMG in Building the homes we need: a programme for the 2015
government (2015), set out a series of measures aimed at reversing
“the model of a high cost, low output housing sector to a low cost,
high output one” having identified that there are “a number of self-
sustaining and self-reinforcing problems that must all be addressed if
the housing shortage is to be rectified.” 29
As discussed in 1.2 of this paper, there is a lot of focus on the need
Supply is ‘critical’
to increase supply but affordability in the private and social but affordability in
sectors is also regarded as critical. the private and
The 2015 Government set out an ambition to deliver 1 million net social sectors also
additions to the housing stock in England by the end of the Parliament, needs to be
considered.
which was expected to be in 2020. 30 This translated into around
200,000 net additions per year. This ‘target’ was arrived at after
consideration of the household formation statistics. 31 Critics said that
the figure did not take account of the backlog of housing need, section
1.2 of this paper refers to studies which have identified a need for
between 240-245,000 homes new homes in each year to meet newly
arising demand and need. Some estimates go higher; Shelter’s 2015
28
UK Housing Review 2015, Steve Wilcox, John Perry and Peter Williams, March 2015
29
government, p32 and p50
30
Net additions includes, for example, conversions and changes of use in addition to
newly built housing.
31
22 Mar 2016 - Economics of the United Kingdom Housing Market - oral evidence,
Q237
literature review identified a need to develop 250,000 new homes

annually 32 while research by Heriot Watt University for the National
Housing Federation (NHF) and Crisis, calls for 340,000 new homes each
year up to 2031. 33 This research identifies a need for 145,000
affordable homes per year of which 90,000 should be for social rent. 34
The current Conservative Government was elected in 2017 with a
manifesto pledge to meet the 2015 commitment to deliver 1 million The current
commitment is to
homes by the end of 2020 and to “deliver half a million more by the
build one million
end of 2022.” The manifesto said that, if elected, the Government homes by 2020 and
would deliver on the reforms proposed in the Housing White Paper 500,000 more by
(February 2017). 35 2022.
In addition to questioning whether a target to deliver 1 million homes is
ambitious enough, there is some doubt over whether even this number
is achievable. The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs
put this question to the then Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, during
its Building More Homes inquiry. The Committee concluded that the
target “was not based on a robust analysis” and went on to
recommend that the housing crisis required the development of at least
300,000 new homes annually “for the foreseeable future”. 36 The
Committee called on the Government to “recognise the inability of the
private sector, as currently incentivised, to build the number of homes
needed.” 37 Knight Frank’s housebuilder survey 2018 reports that 61%
of respondents thought that between 200,000 and 250,000 net
additional homes would be achievable by 2022 in current market
conditions:
A quarter believe net supply will be fewer than 200,000, and
13% said levels would reach 250,000-300,000. Only 1% of
respondents thought more than 300,000 was achievable by
2022. 38
The 2015 Government took action to stimulate housing supply through
a variety of schemes. 39 In its response to Building More Homes, the
Government referred to these schemes and also to additional funding
and measures announced during the Autumn Statement 2016. 40 The
response acknowledged that “we have much more to do as a country
to build more homes and that the Government has a role to play in
making sure our housing market works for everyone.” 41
32
government, pp19-20
33
National Housing Federation (NHF) Press Release, England short of 4 million homes,
18 May 2018
34
Ibid.
35
Conservative Party Manifesto 2017, p70
36
Select Committee on Economic Affairs, 1st Report of Session 2016-17, Building More
Homes, HL Paper 20, 15 July 2016, para 84
37
Ibid., para 85
38
Knight Frank, Housebuilding Report 2018, July 2018, Figure 3, page 3.
39
For more information see Library briefing paper 06416: Stimulating housing supply -
Government initiatives (England)
40
Government response to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Report:
"Building more homes" CM 9384, December 2016
41
Ibid.
February 2017 saw the publication of the Housing White paper Fixing
our broken housing market, 42 which set out “a comprehensive package
of reform to increase housing supply and halt the decline in housing
affordability.” 43 When giving evidence to the Public Accounts
Committee in February 2017, Melanie Dawes, Permanent Secretary at
DCLG, was questioned on when the gap between net additions to the
stock and the demand for new housing, estimated to be 189,000 and
277,000 respectively, would be eliminated. She replied:
It will continue as it has done for decades. I agree, and that will
show itself primarily in affordability and in some places in
homelessness. I am simply being honest with you. For something
on this scale and of this magnitude, we do not have some neat
line that tells us when those paths will cross. 44
The following sections highlight some of the key barriers and potential
solutions to increasing housing supply which have been identified by
commentators. As noted above, there is a lack of consensus around all
the issues and possible approaches. Some proposals, such as building on
the green belt, are particularly contentious. The paper has been updated
to include reference to proposals contained in the Housing White Paper,
and subsequent developments, where appropriate.
A request made by the economist, Dame Kate Barker, when giving
evidence to both the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee 45 and
the Treasury Committee, during its inquiry into housing policy following
the Autumn Statement 2016, 46 was for housing policy to be joined up
between the Treasury, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP),
Department for Communities and Local Government (now the Ministry
of Housing, Communities and Local Government, MHCLG) and the
Bank of England.
3.1 The local authority and housing

association contribution
The table on page 19 of this paper demonstrates that the delivery of
Since 1939, the
more than 200,000 homes per year in England has, since 1939, only delivery of 200,000
happened largely because of major public sector (local authority) new homes per
housebuilding programmes. The Shelter and KPMG report Building the year in England has
homes we need: a programme for the 2015 government (2015) states largely been due to
that, since World War II, private housebuilding has been through three major public sector
major periods of expansion followed by contractions and after each building
crash the recovery has been slower, with the result that: programmes.
…for more than half the period, private house building has either
been contracting or stagnant, and total output has ratcheted
steadily down with each cycle. 47
42
Cm 9352, Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017
43
Cm 9362, Autumn Statement 2016, November 2016, para 3.11
44
HC 958, 22 February 2017, Q132
45
46
HC 861, 7 December 2016, Q50
47
government, p20
In this context, the contribution of the local authority and housing

The NHF said that
association sectors could be significant in achieving the necessary step- with Government
change in housing supply. The House of Lords Select Committee on help, housing
Economic Affairs was emphatic on this point: associations could
To achieve its target the Government must recognise the inability deliver 335,000
of the private sector, as currently incentivised, to build the number homes over the
of homes needed. 48 lifetime of the
Local authorities and housing associations need to make a much Parliament – which
bigger contribution to housebuilding if it is to reach required was expected to
levels. 49 run up to 2020.
A further argument which is used to support the development of more

social and affordable rented housing, is its potential to reduce Housing
Benefit expenditure over the long-term. 50 While there is agreement that
overall supply is important, commentators are increasingly focusing on
the need to deliver more truly affordable housing to tackle living
standards and “loosen the grip of poverty.” 51
The local authority and housing association sectors are keen to
do more and argue that they have the capacity to deliver.
The National Housing Federation’s (NHF) 52 submission on the 2016
Autumn Statement expressed a desire in the housing association sector
to work with the Government to “deliver 335,000 homes over the
lifetime of this Parliament” with an offer of “£6 of private investment
for every £1 of public money, maximum flexibility in the way we use our
existing resources and a guarantee that all profits are reinvested in
homes and communities.” 53 The NHF welcomed the commitment
contained in the Social Housing Green Paper (August 2018) to “protect
and grow” the contribution of social housing to the housing market. 54
The NHF’s submission to the 2018 Budget referred to the “series of Alongside the £2
welcome commitments made to the housing associations sector” over billion announced
the previous 12 months. 55 These commitments include: in Budget 2017, the
Government said
• An increase in funding for affordable housing of £2 billion – that this support
increasing the Affordable Homes Programme to £9.1 billion. 56 could be used for
social housing in
addition to
affordable rent and
low-cost home
ownership
products.
48
49
Ibid., para 56
50
Ibid., para 201
51
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Affordable housing: why current plans to invest don’t
go far enough, 27 March 2018
52
The representative body of housing associations.
53
NHF, An offer for everyone, October 2016
54
Cm 9671, MHCLG, A new deal for social housing, August 2018, p11
55
NHF, Submission: Budget 2018, 28 September 2018
56
Announced at Budget 2017.
• Confirmation of a five-year rent settlement from 2020. 57

From April 2020
• A further £2 billion initiative announced in September 2018. social landlords will
Under this scheme, associations can apply for funding and enter be able to apply
into longer-term partnerships up to 2028/29. 58 The NHF described annual rent
this as lending further “long term certainty to associations’ increases for five
operating environment”. 59 years of CPI+1%.
Setting Social Rent
The submission called for measures to build on Homes England’s (Capital Economics,
strategic partnerships and the £2 billion up to 20128/29 to deliver “ten- February 2018)
year certainty over housing investment”. There was also an concluded that
emphasis, as there had been in previous submissions, on a more higher increases
flexible funding system: could be
We are keen to see Homes England consolidate its existing
sustainable in some
funding streams into a single fund, and to remove restrictions areas to provide
around where future funding for social rent can be spent. Instead, more properties.
Homes England should be allowed to work with local areas, to
deliver according to local need. 60
To achieve the 145,000 new affordable homes needed per year
For more
identified in the Heriot-Watt research 61, the NHF estimates that around
information on
£8.1 billion of grant funding would be needed annually. An alternative ideas about
approach, suggested in the 2018 submission, is to close the funding capturing land
gap by capturing a greater proportion of land value and to use value see section
this to fund affordable housing. The NHF estimates that this could 3.2 of this paper.
bring annual investment down to £2.43 billion. 62
As well as a focus on capturing land value, the NHF returned to the
After the Autumn
issue of securing affordable housing on public land in its 2018 2017 Budget, the
submission. This ‘ask’ was also included in the NHF’s 2017 Budget NHF said that there
submission, alongside a call for a national minimum threshold for was “a distinct lack
affordable housing required on new housing developments. 63 The of radial solutions
revised version of the NPPF published on 24 July 2018, states that where to the long-
major development involving the provision of housing is proposed, standing issues of
planning policies and decisions “should expect at least 10% of the public sector land
homes to be available for affordable home ownership.” 64 and the sanctity of
the greenbelt.
The 2018 submission called on the Government to “use its position of
influence to ensure that publicly held land makes the biggest possible
contribution to tackling the housing crisis” – the NHF believes that
Homes England should be directed to deliver 50% affordable housing
across its land disposal and development programme. 65
57
Summer Budget 2015 announced that social housing providers would have to
reduce their rents by 1% each year for four years up to 2020. Analysis of the impact
on associations by Savills Housing Consultancy, and seen by Inside Housing, reported
that the sector’s financial capacity had reduced by 9% since the rent cut began in
April 2016. Inside Housing, Sector’s capacity down 9% since rent cut, research
shows”, 9 March 2018
58
PM to address the National Housing Federation summit, 18 September 2018
59
60
Ibid.
61
See p27
62
63
NHF, Submission: Autumn Budget 2017, 22 September 2017
64
MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework, 24 July 2018, para 64 [exemptions to
this requirement will be allowed in certain circumstances]
65
Unlocking private finance – associations use public funding to lever in

private finance for housing development. In its 2016 submission to the
Autumn Statement, the NHF argued that there was a “strong case” for
the continuation of the Affordable Homes Guarantee scheme (AHGS)
which had given them access to long-term, competitively priced finance
to deliver affordable homes:
By the time the scheme is complete, it will have provided £2.5bn
of guaranteed lending to 70 housing associations to deliver
27,000 new affordable homes. In addition to the affordable
homes directly funded under the AHGS, by virtue of its lower cost
of finance, the programme has produced an estimated interest
saving capable of financing a further 6,000–6,500 homes.
The sector’s no default record means it came at no cost to the
taxpayer, so there is a strong case for it continuing. A total of
£10bn of guarantee capacity was committed by the Coalition
Government via the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act 2012.
We understand that there is up to £4bn of unused guarantee
capacity that could be allocated to support additional affordable
housebuilding. To make more effective use of the Government’s
strong balance sheet, and the confidence funders have in the
sector, this guarantee capacity could also be extended to cover
refinancing of existing debt. This would allow housing
associations to lower the cost of historic debt and take on more
private finance to fund affordable housing. 66
The 2018 submission welcomed the announcement contained in the
Autumn Budget 2017 of a further £8 billion of guarantees but urged
the Government to “announce how this will be used, and to ensure
support for affordable homes forms an important part.” 67
Shelter and KPMG have proposed the establishment of a national
Housing and Infrastructure Bank funded from Housing ISAs along
the lines of the Dutch Bank, Nederlandse Gemeenten (BNG):
A similar structure could be set up in the United Kingdom, with
ownership of the bank exclusively in the hands of the
government, shared with local authorities or as a not-for-profit
vehicle. The bank would need to raise finance so that it could
extend loans to housing associations and other providers of new
affordable housing. This could come from issuing bonds to the
capital markets, as is the case with BNG, and the bank could also
use special savings accounts (housing ISAs) to raise finance from
retail deposits, as in the french livrét A scheme. The Bank could be
a new institution, or part of an existing or planned institution such
as the Green Investment Bank, British Investment Bank or homes
and communities Agency (HCA). 68
Reflecting on the 2018 Budget, Kate Henderson, CEO at the NHF,
expressed disappointment that the opportunity to overhaul how land is
sold had not been taken to ensure the delivery of more social rented
homes. 69
66
NHF, An offer for everyone, October 2016
67
68
government, p75
69
Inside Housing, “Budget a ‘missed opportunity’ on housing says NHF”, 30 October
2018
The local authority contribution to new housing supply had been

Authorities that are
contracting since the early 1980s, but many authorities are keen to keen to develop
explore how they can increase their contribution. The self-financing new social housing
settlement, which became operational from April 2012, gave authorities have taken a
the opportunity, within certain parameters, to use their rental income to cautious approach
support housing investment. 70 These opportunities have been limited by due to borrowing
the imposition of borrowing caps and, more recently, the requirement caps and social
on social landlords to reduce rents by 1% in each year for four years sector rent
from April 2016. reductions.
A report by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and the Chartered

Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), Investing in Council
Housing (2016), estimated that the 2012 settlement originally offered
the potential for authorities to develop 550,000 new build properties
over 30 years. Inflationary changes by 2016 had reduced this to
160,000 units, while rent reductions reduced capacity further to 45,000
units. 71 Financial uncertainty, coupled with challenges posed by
Government proposals on selling higher-value properties and changes
to Housing Benefit entitlement, 72 which, in turn, threaten local
authorities’ rental streams, means that authorities have tended to take a
cautious approach to new housing development.
Since 2012 there have been various calls for a relaxation of local
Both the Labour
authority borrowing caps. 73 Opponents of the caps argued that local and Liberal
authorities should be able to borrow to build social housing within the Democrat 2017
existing prudential regime. The Government, until recently, resisted manifestos
these calls on the basis that additional borrowing would have an impact committed to lift
on the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR): local authority
The borrowing caps were introduced as part of the Housing borrowing
Revenue Account self-financing settlement, which entailed a once restrictions to
and for all rebalancing of housing debt. There are no plans to lift stimulate house
the caps, which are part of the government's strategy to manage building.
the overall level of public debt.
Local authorities do have the capacity to borrow to build new
homes, there is nearly £3.4 billion headroom available nationally
and £2.9 billion in reserves. 74
In Building More Homes, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select
Committee described restrictions on authorities’ ability to borrow to
build housing as “arbitrary and anomalous” and recommended “that
the Government allows local authorities to borrow under the prudential
regime to build all types of housing.” 75
70
See Library briefing paper 06776, Local housing authorities - the self-financing
regime: progress and issues
71
CIH and CIPFA, Investing in Council Housing, July 2016
72
The Government has said that the higher value sales policy will not be implemented
and Local Housing Allowance rates will not be extended to cover claimants living in
the social rented sector.
73
See Library briefing paper 06776, Local housing authorities - the self-financing
regime: progress and issues
74
HL3457 – Written Question - 7 December 2016
75
When challenged on borrowing caps, the Government referred to the

The Government
Statistics on Right
fact that authorities were not utilising their existing borrowing to Buy sales
argued that local
headroom. Evidence submitted to the Communities and Local published inwere
authorities Marchnot
Government Committee’s inquiry, Capacity in the homebuilding and June
using their2018
existing
industry (April 2017), suggested that this is a reaction to funding cuts show that the
borrowing
and uncertainty: “They argue that the chance for increased borrowing Government’s
headroom.
headroom is no longer seen as an opportunity to take additional action, commitment to
but as a necessary protection from further cuts and intervention.” 76 In
an article for Inside Housing on 26 July 2018, John Perry explained in
some detail why authorities might not be using their full borrowing
capacity. 77
However, the Autumn 2017 Budget announced that councils in
Bidding guidance
areas with high affordability pressure would be able to bid for has been issued for
increases in their borrowing caps from 2019-20. Up to £1 billion in authorities seeking
additional borrowing will be possible by the end of 2021-22. 78 Bidding additional
guidance for local authorities outside of London was published on borrowing capacity.
26 June 2018. A parallel prospectus was published for London which
secured half of the additional borrowing capacity.
This was followed by the Prime Minister announcing, during her speech
to the Conservative Party Conference on 3 October 2018, that
borrowing caps would be lifted to support more housebuilding. 79
The Chancellor announced the lifting of borrowing caps with effect
from 29 October 2018 during the Budget:
…the Housing Revenue Account cap that controls local authority
borrowing for house building will be abolished from 29 October
2018 in England, enabling councils to increase house building to
around 10,000 homes per year. The Welsh Government is taking
immediate steps to lift the cap in Wales. 80
The announcement was warmly greeted within the sector. The
Resolution Foundation commented on the potential impact:
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates that councils
could complete an additional 20,000 new units by 2023-24 (and
we estimate a further 7,000-plus units could be started by this
point). Construction on this scale would represent a significant
step-change for local authorities: in England and Wales they built
a mere 1,900 new homes in 2017-18. 81
The blog identifies potential savings for individuals due to lower social
rent levels compared to private rents, and for the State due to Housing
Benefit savings. Several factors are identified as explanations for the
OBR’s assessment of “uncertainty around local authorities’ use of the
extra borrowing room as ‘medium to high” including:
76
HC 46, Tenth Report of session 2016-17, 29 April 2017, para 54
77
Inside Housing, Why councils don’t use all their existing borrowing capacity?”, 26
July 2018
78
HC 587, November 2017, para 5.23
79
Prime Minister’s Conference Speech, 3 October 2018
80
HMT, HC 1629, 2018 Budget, para 4.56
81
Resolution Foundation blog, Lifting the lid on the borrowing cap, 31 October 2108
• The continuation of the Right to Buy which could temper councils’

appetite to build. Some authorities may prefer to build through
local housing companies.
• The requirement for additional funds to combine with borrowing:
“money available for affordable homes still below the levels we
saw in 2008-2010, and much already allocated to ongoing
activities, councils may not be able to take full advantage of new
borrowing opportunities without additional grant finance.”
• Existing in-house capabilities of many councils to manage complex
building programmes should not be over-estimated. 82
Prior to the Budget, research conducted by Capital Economics for the
Local Government Association (LGA) was reported as having identified
that councils could generate £320 billion for the economy over the next
50 years if they were able to build “a new generation of high quality
council housing”. The research found:
• Every £1 invested in a new social home generates £2.84 in
the wider economy.
• Every new social home would generate a saving of £780
per year in Housing Benefit.
• Every new social home would generate a fiscal surplus
through rental income. 83
160 English local authorities currently have a Housing Revenue
Account. 84
John Perry, housing policy advisor at the Chartered Institute of Housing
argues that the Government should adopt international
accounting conventions to take borrowing for council housing
investment out of the main measure of government debt. 85
There is no correlation between an authority’s need and desire to invest
In February 2018
in its existing stock or develop new housing and its ability to utilise Inside Housing
additional borrowing capacity under self-financing. London Councils’ reported that the
evidence to the Communities and Local Government Select Welsh Government
Committee’s inquiry into Financing New Housing Supply was “in talks” on
(2010-12) highlighted this issue and proposed that authorities moving unused
should be able to share their borrowing capacity: borrowing capacity
around the sector.
This would in effect merely re-distribute existing debt around local
authorities and would not add to the aggregate HRA-related debt.
However, at the moment it is not possible and would need central
government’s approval to happen. As such a move would not add
to the aggregate debt, and would allow boroughs to act far more
like the housing business managers that HRA devolution implies,
the freedom to swap headroom in this manner is something that
82
Ibid.
83
LGA, “Potential £320 billion windfall from new generation of high quality council
housing”, 28 October 2018
84
Written question -181173, 29 October 2018
85
John Perry, Public Finance, Lifting the HRA borrowing cap should come with
accounting changes”, 22 October 2018
we would strongly urge the Government to actively consider in

the coming months. 86
This approach, which the Committee recommended, was also
supported by Labour Party-commissioned Lyons housing review
(2014). 87 The Coalition Government rejected the proposition. 88
A further area where authorities argue for flexibilities is to enable them
Statistics on the RTB
to replace properties sold through the Right to Buy (RTB), for published in March
example by: and June 2018
…allowing councils to keep all of the receipts from sales and show that the aim
relaxing rules on how these are reinvested, for example by of replacing all
extending the three year time limit and removing restrictions properties sold
which prevent receipts from being used to fund more than 30 per under the
cent of the cost of a new home. 89 incentivised RTB is
On publication of the March RTB 2018 statistical bulletin the former not on track.
Housing Minister, Dominic Raab, issued a Written Statement
commenting on the failure to meet the three-year replacement target in
which he raised the possibility of additional flexibility on authorities’ use
of capital receipts. 90
Subsequently, the Government published a consultation paper on Use
of receipts from Right to Buy sales in August 2018; submissions were
invited up to 9 October 2018. Responses are being analysed.
The 2013 Autumn Statement announced that the Coalition
Government would launch a review into the role local authorities could
play in supporting overall housing supply. 91 The Elphicke-House report
of January 2015 also expressed concerns about the ability of local
authorities to offer local one-for-one replacement of sold RTB properties
and supported additional borrowing flexibilities in certain limited
circumstances:
Government considers within its overall current spending plans
flexibilities in any possible further HRA borrowing programme to
enable councils to use both additional borrowing and 1:1 receipts
to enable councils to deliver replacement units for Right to Buy
stock. 92
Overall, The Elphicke-House report recommended that local authorities
should become “housing delivery enablers”, through the use of
innovative financing mechanisms including: the creation of housing
companies funded by the General Fund; private finance initiatives; and
housing investment from local authority pension funds:
A number of stock owning council respondents indicated that
they would not be able to build more homes without additional
borrowing capacity. However, local authorities with little or no
borrowing headroom have developed innovative finance models,
86
HC 1652, Eleventh Report of 2010-12 Volume I, Financing New Housing Supply,
May 2012, Ev 134-5
87
The Lyons housing review, 2014 p145
88
Cm 8401, July 2012, para 17
89
CIH submission to the Autumn Statement 2016, October 2016
90
Social Housing Update: Written Statement – HCWS614, 29 March 2018
91
Cm 8747, 2013 Autumn Statement, December 2013, para 1.229
92
The Elphicke-House report, January 2015, para 4.27
including via local housing delivery vehicles, to lever-in private

finance to support house building programmes. 93
The CIH submission to the Autumn Statement 2016 noted that many
councils are exploring alternative models for housebuilding such as
housing companies and other means of funding development outside of
the HRA. The CIH called on the Government to “consider options to
support this kind of development.” 94 The Smith Institute has predicted
that on current trends, up to half of all councils in England could have a
local housing company by 2020 95 although this was before the lifting of
the HRA borrowing caps. The LGA published Innovation in council
housebuilding in October 2018 which provides examples of innovative
approaches councils have adopted to housing development.
Fixing our broken housing market expressed support for local housing
The Housing White
companies: Paper said the
There are a number of good examples of Local Development Government would
Corporations, local housing companies and/or joint venture seek to support
models building mixed sites, which include new market housing local authority
for sale or private rent, as well as affordable housing. We owned housing
welcome innovations like these, and want more local authorities companies and help
to get building. To that end we will seek to address the issues that
them to build.
hold them back. However, we want to see tenants that local
authorities place in new affordable properties offered equivalent (para 3.28)
terms to those in council housing, including a right to buy their
home. 96
Commentators are concerned that a requirement to offer the Right to
Buy to tenants occupying properties built by council owned housing
companies could threaten the viability of schemes. 97 Support for local
authority housing companies was reiterated in A new deal for social
housing (August 2018), as is the requirement to ensure that residents
will have the opportunity to become homeowners. 98
The White Paper also included a commitment to consider ‘bespoke
The Housing White
deals’ with local authorities: Paper said the
Housing markets are different right across the country, and we Government would
are interested in the scope for bespoke housing deals with consider bespoke
authorities in high demand areas, which have a genuine ambition deals with local
to build. We will look seriously at any request from local authorities to
authorities for Government powers to be used to support delivery deliver additional
in their local area, and will be prepared to consider all the levers at
housing. (para 3.33)
our disposal to do so, so long as this results in genuinely
additional housing being delivered. 99
The representative bodies of both housing associations and local
authorities agree that to make a significant contribution to housing
93
The Elphicke-House report, From statutory provider to housing-delivery enabler,
January 2015, para 4.24
94
CIH submission to the Autumn Statement 2016, October 2016
95
Smith Institute, Delivering the renaissance in council-built homes – the rise of local
housing companies, October 2017
96
Cm 9352, Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017, para 3.28
97
See for example: LGA Briefing on the Housing White Paper, February 2017
98
MHCLG, A new deal for social housing, 14 August 2018, paras 154-156
99
supply, the sectors require certainty around public policy matters.

The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs concluded:
Government must recognise the effect that constant changes in
public policy have on the housing market; housebuilders, housing
associations and local authorities are unlikely to commit to large
building programmes amid such uncertainty. 100
3.2 Land supply and capturing value

Around 10% of land in England is classed as ‘urban’ and 1% has
domestic buildings on it. 101 While there is sufficient land to build on,
land is scarce in economic terms as its supply is inherently limited and
fixed. This leads, it is argued, to developers having to undergo ‘fierce’
competition for land “while remaining uncertain as to what planning
permission they will be able to secure.” 102 The price of land is certainly
viewed as a barrier to housebuilding. The gain in value that planning
permission offers is said to encourage strategic land trading,
rather than development, “resulting in the most profitable
beneficiaries of residential development being the land owner, not the
developer.” 103 High land prices can, in turn, force down the quality and
size of new homes and present difficulties for small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) when seeking to compete for sites to develop. The
New Economics Foundation (NEF) in What lies beneath (July 2018),
argues that unaffordable land is “at the heart of the housing crisis” and
that “any solution to the housing crisis will never succeed unless it takes
major steps to address our broken land system.” 104
Shelter and KPMG suggest that combined features of the land market
mean that there is little competitive pressure at the consumer end of
development process:
…the development process is highly vulnerable to shocks,
requiring developers to minimise build costs and maximise sale
prices by building at a rate that is not related to demand for
homes, but demand for homes at certain prices. This strategy is
only possible because barriers to entry and market concentration
mean there is little competitive pressure at the consumer end of
the development process, which might otherwise drive down
margins. Competition is focused on acquiring land, rather than
satisfying consumers. the result is a vicious circle in which high
land prices ensure housing output remains low and house prices
high – which in turn feedback to sustain higher land prices. 105
One potential response to this could be a Land Value Tax (LVT).
Essentially, under this system land owners would be required to make
100
101
UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011, p23
102
government, p8
103
Ibid.
104
NEF, What lies beneath: how to fix the broken land system at the heart of our
housing crisis, July 2018, p2
105
government, p39
payments based on the current market value of land, irrespective of

whether, or how well, the land is used. Proponents argue that:
The necessity to pay the tax obliges landowners to develop vacant
and under-used land properly or to make way for others who
will. 106
In What lies beneath (July 2018), the NEF proposes taxation mechanisms
The New Economics
“to redistribute unfair gains which accrue to landowners through public Foundation
investment and land value increases.” 107 suggests that
There is some support amongst economists for a LVT to replace business taxation
rates, and, ultimately, Council Tax and Stamp Duty Land Tax. These mechanisms could
“either involve
ideas have not garnered wide political support. 108 However, the Labour
capturing one-off
Party’s 2017 Manifesto said: increases in value
We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business that come with new
rates and consider new options such as a land value tax, to development or
ensure local government has sustainable funding for the long capturing some or
term. 109 all land value
A March 2018 briefing note by thinktank Civitas proposed that councils increases over
should be allowed to buy sites at valuations that exclude potential time.”
future planning permission. This, it is argued, could reduce upfront
development costs for 100,000 units from an estimated £24 billion to
£15 billion using a new code for valuing land. 110
There does appear to be growing support for reforms to the
Land Compensation Act 1961 and for changes to the prospective
use value that landowners can charge for sites. Labour’s Green
Paper, Housing for the Many (April 2018) contains the following
commitment:
A Labour Government will establish an English Sovereign Land
Trust to work with local authorities to enable more proactive
buying of land at a price closer to existing use value. As part of
this we will consider changes to the rules governing the
compensation paid to landowners. 111
The NHF’s submission on Budget 2018 said “the cost and availability of
land remains the single biggest barrier housing associations face to
building more homes, more quickly.” 112 The NHF called for:
• Reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961 to enable a fairer
proportion of the uplift in land value to be shared with the
community, including for affordable housing.
• A commitment to deliver 50% affordable housing on public
sector land.
106
Land Value Taxation Campaign [accessed on 4 January 2017]
107
108
Institute for Economic Affairs, The case for a Land Value Tax, 15 February 2016
109
Labour Party Manifesto 2017, p86
110
Civitas, Reform of the land compensation rules: How much could it save on the cost
of a public-sector housebuilding programme? March 2018
111
Labour Party, Housing for the Many, April 2018, p22
112
• A transparent database of land ownership. 113

Former Conservative Planning Housing Minister, Nick Boles, has
There is growing
expressed some support for giving authorities the ability to buy land at support for reforms
current use value 114 and, in Green, Pleasant and Affordable (June 2018), to the Land
Neil O’Brien, writing for the Conservative think tank, Onward, said: Compensation Act
Give councils borrowing power to buy land and grant themselves 1961 to enable land
planning permission, to enable councils to capture more of the purchase at current
gains from development. Reform the 1961 Land Compensation use value.
Act to clarify that local and central government can purchase land
at current market use values, not inflated or speculative “hope”
values. Reform Section 106 to relax constraints on what councils
can charge. 115
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee
conducted an inquiry into land value capture which reported on
13 September 2018. 116 The Government response was published in
November 2019. 117 The Committee concluded that there was scope
for central and local government to claim a greater proportion of
land value increases through “reforms to existing taxes and
charges, improvements to compulsory purchase powers, or
through new mechanisms of land value capture.” 118 The
Government agrees that there is scope to claim a greater proportion of
land values but intends to “evolve the existing system of developer
contributions to make them more transparent, efficient and
accountable”. There is an intention to “continue to explore options for
further reforms to better capture land value uplift, providing it can be
assured that the short-run impact on land markets does not distract
from delivering a better housing market.” 119
On the Committee’s call to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 to
allow authorities to compulsorily purchase land at a fairer price, the
Government said:
Through the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and Neighbourhood
Planning Act 2017, the Government has recently taken forward
wide-ranging reforms to make the compulsory purchase process
clearer, fairer and faster for all. These reforms include extensive
changes to the Land Compensation Act 1961. We are keen to let
these recent reforms bed in but will continue to monitor their
practical application and remain open to considering practical
improvements to the framework. 120
There is support for an increase in transparency of the land supply
system through the release of data on land market activity and for
incentives to promote the development of stalled sites. Better
data would, it is argued, create a more level playing field and enable
113
Ibid.
114
Financial Times, “Tory MP’s housing reforms divide industry,” 14 November 2017
115
Neil O’Brien MP, Onward, Green, Pleasant and Affordable, June 2018, p8
116
HC 766, Tenth Report of 2017-19, 13 September 2018
117
CM 9734, November 2018
118
HC 766, Tenth Report of 2017-19, 13 September 2018
119
CM 9734, November 2018, para 11
120
Ibid., para 29
small builders to find sites more easily. 121 The Lyons Housing Review of
2014 recommended that the Land Registry should open up land
ownership information to the public and that it should be made a legal
requirement to register land option agreements, prices and transactions:
Greater transparency about ownership, options and transactions
would deliver a number of important benefits that would result in
better operation of the land market. It would assist in effective
plan making by enabling local authorities to properly assess land
availability and the record of landowners, agents and developers
in bringing forward sites. It would greatly assist local authorities
and other developers in land assembly, and provide information
on achievable prices to landowners. It would also improve
understanding of the viability of schemes to assist in negotiations
of planning obligations. This would also increase the chance of
planning gain being financed by a landowner rather than a
developer. 122
Fixing our broken housing market set out measures the Government
intended to take to increase the transparency of land ownership and
interests, including:
• A target for HM Land Registry to achieve comprehensive land
The Housing White
registration by 2030 with all publicly held land in areas of high
Paper contained
housing need registered by 2020, with the rest to follow by 2025.
measures aimed at
• Consult on improving the transparency of contractual improving the
arrangements used to control land with legislation to follow “at transparency of
the earliest opportunity.” land ownership and
interests in land.
• The release of the commercial and corporate ownership data set (paras 1.17-21)
and the overseas ownership data set free of charge, and
publication of a draft Bill on the reform of restrictive covenants
and other interests. 123
The annex to the White Paper contained consultation questions on
these proposals. Responses could be submitted up to 2 May 2017.
121
government, p13
122
The Lyons Housing Review, 2014, p63
123
Cm 9352, Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017, paras 1.17-21
Box 2: Is land banking a problem?

Land banking describes the practice of land owners who retain land while its value grows until it can be
built on more profitably, sold on at an increased price, or is simply retained as an asset.
Several studies have considered whether land banking takes place. For example, a report by Molior for
the London Mayor in 2012 found that of the 210,000 existing planning permissions for new homes in
London, 55% were in the control of building firms while 45% were in the control of non-building firms
such as investment funds, historic land owners, government and ‘developers’ who do not build. Molior
concluded that accusations of land banking directed at builders were ‘misplaced.’ An update report in
2014 found a smaller percentage of planning permissions held by non-developers.
It is acknowledged that developers retain stocks of land with planning permission as a strategy for
managing pipelines and ‘smoothing out peaks and troughs in resource allocation.’ There are also
holdings of ‘strategic land banks’ which are sites without planning permission which are generally held
‘under option,’ i.e. not recorded as in the developer’s ownership. Shelter and KPMG conclude that
incentives to get strategic land through planning are ‘very high’ and expect any issues to be:
…more at the strategic and local planning level, with a lack of visibility over land control
and intent meaning that it is less each to match planning strategy with land that is
controlled by developers and hence more likely to be able to be brought forward quickly
for development. 124
If land banking is not the main problem, there does appear to be a case for ensuring that the majority
of suitable land for development is held by firms who intend to build on it.
Release of public sector land for housing

Government activity since 2010 in relation to land supply has been
focused on ensuring that land in public ownership is released for
housebuilding. Evidence submitted by the Home Builders Federation to
the Lords Economic Affairs Committee said that between a quarter and
a third of all potential residential land was controlled by the public
sector. 125 In June 2011, the then Minister for Housing announced a plan
to release enough public land to build up to 100,000 new homes by
2015. 126 The Autumn Statement 2015 saw a commitment to sell land
for more than 160,000 new homes up to 2020, while the then Housing
Minister told the Economic Affairs Committee that the 2015
Government was aiming for 320,000 homes on public land in the
Parliament. 127
The Coalition Government’s land release programme attracted criticism
from both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee
(PAC). 128 Progress in disposing of sites was described as ‘slow’ and many
of the potential sites were considered to be at ‘high risk’ of falling out
of the programme. The PAC concluded that the disposals programme
124
government, p37
125
126
DCLG Press Release, 8 June 2011
127
128
HC 634, Twenty-second report of 2016-17, 2 November 2016
up to 2015 “could not demonstrate the success of the programme in

addressing the housing shortage or achieving value for money.” 129
Progress in delivering the 2015-2020 disposals programme had
improved, according to the PAC:
The Department has put in place guidance and monitoring
arrangements for the 2015–2020 programme, although it has yet
to publish these. It has also made clearer other departments’ roles
and responsibilities. We are also pleased that the Department has
now agreed to monitor the number of homes actually built; the
programme is an important part of addressing the current
housing shortage and the taxpayer has a right to know how many
homes are built as a result of it. 130
An update on Government action to release public sector land for
housing was provided in response to a PQ on 23 November 2017. 131
Ordnance Survey has been commissioned to monitor the progress of
homes built on land released through the 2011-15 and 2015-20 Public
Land for Housing Programme, this data “will be released in due
course.” 132 August 2018 saw the publication of an updated handbook
on the Public Land for Housing Programme 2015-2020.
In Building the homes we need: a programme for the 2015 government
Shelter and KPMG suggested that local authorities could set up joint
ventures to lease land to affordable house builders, or institutional
investors, while retaining the freehold. Leasing the land would mean
that authorities could receive a share of any rental income:
Capital Economics modelling shows that such a model could be
set up which requires no upfront grant funding to build the
affordable homes and returns between 15% and 30% of rental
income to the local authority dependent on location. The
downside to local authorities would simply be the opportunity
cost of not selling the land to a developer for full market value at
that point (although freehold ownership would be retained). 133
The Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs expressed support for
these types of initiative and referred to calls from Orbit Group, a large
housing association, for the identification and release of government
owned land specifically for the building of rented properties. Orbit’s
suggested model would involve deferring the land costs for a period,
e.g. 30 years, to ensure rents charged are affordable. 134
The Government response (November 2018) to the Select Committee’s
inquiry into land value capture set out the local authority and Homes
England role in land assembly:
The revised National Planning Policy Framework encourages local
authorities to take a proactive approach to land assembly,
supported where necessary by the use of compulsory purchase
129
Ibid., para 8
130
Ibid., p3
131
Public sector land – Written question – 111227, 23 November 2017
132
Housing: Construction: Written question – 163754, 18 July 2018
133
government, p76
134
powers, where doing so would help to secure better development

outcomes. This work is supported by MHCLG’s Land Release Fund
which supports councils to bid for funding for land remediation
and small-scale infrastructure, which will help bring sites forward
for housing that would not have otherwise been developed.
Additionally the £1.3billion Land Assembly Fund, launched in
September 2018, enables the acquisition of land needing work to
get it ready for the market.
Homes England also have an important role in assembling land for
housing. They use mechanisms enabling control of the pace of
development on land it disposes through the Public Land for
Housing Programme. Instead of freehold sales, Homes England in
many cases use building leases, which grant developers
permission to build homes on its land. Freeholds are passed
directly to homeowners. Conditions within the building lease set
development milestones. In the event of failure by developers to
meet milestones or other requirements within the lease, Homes
England have the power to terminate leases and bring the land
back to the market. Homes England already have broad
compulsory purchase powers under section 9 of the Housing and
Regeneration Act 2008 which can be used to assemble land for
housing development and regeneration projects. In the Housing
White Paper, Homes England committed to making more
proactive use of these powers. 135
The New Economics Foundation is critical of the sale of public land to
the highest bidder and is calling for public land to be “put to the service
of long-term public good”:
Recommendation: End the fire sale public land, instead using
surplus land to form the basis for a People’s Land Bank. This
should be used in partnership with communities to meet local
need, primarily affordable housing. The freehold for public land
should remain in the public sector, with long leases provided to
Local Authorities, Housing Associations and community land
trusts, increasing affordable housing and providing long term
income stream for the public sector. This would enable
governments to begin to break the link between economic
growth and housing unaffordability. 136
The NEF also supports the establishment of a Land Commission:
Recommendation: Following Scotland’s lead, an English Land
Commission should be established to identify policies for an
equitable distribution of land, and land values, and a fairer land
system. 137
135
CM 9734, November 2018, paras 43 and 44
136
137
Ibid.
The Lords Select Committee supported the relaxation of the

The Housing White
requirement to achieve best market value when releasing public Paper said the
land but concluded that this would only work “if there is a central Government would
scheme that approves and compensates public bodies who sell land consult on
below market value.” 138 extending flexibility
to dispose of land
The annex to the Housing White Paper contained consultation questions
at less than best
on disposal at less than best value:
consideration.
We will consult on using powers in the Growth and Infrastructure (para 1.27)
Act 2013 to issue a new General Disposal Consent, which would
enable authorities to dispose of land held for planning purposes at
less than best consideration without the need for specific consent
from the Secretary of State. The consultation will seek views on a
threshold below which specific consent would not need to be
obtained. We will also consult on revising the existing £2m
threshold for the disposal of other (non-housing) land. 139
The Housing Communities and Local Government Select Committee
also concluded that public land should not always be sold to the highest
bidder:
The Government owns tens of thousands of acres of land across
the UK and so there is much that can be learned from Germany
and the Netherlands with regard to capturing increases in value
from publicly-owned land. The Government should reflect on the
experience of Freiburg and Amsterdam to ensure that, where
public land is put forward for residential development, the
maximum value is captured for new infrastructure and public
services. This may not always equate to selling public land to the
highest bidder, but instead on the basis of the proposed levels of
affordable housing or commitment to providing the necessary
infrastructure. 140
The Government’s response is reproduced below:
Government recognises that, in some instances, it may be
appropriate to dispose of land at less than best consideration
(undervalue) where this is justified in the wider public interest, for
example, to enable the regeneration of land to deliver new
housing. The Government is also consulting on giving local
authorities additional freedom to make the most of existing Consultation on the
brownfield land and dispose of surplus land that could instead
rules governing
accommodate new homes. 141
disposal of public
Consultation on “the disposal of surplus local authority land - land at less than
rationalising and updating the rules which govern disposal of public best value is open
land at less than best value” is ongoing – responses can be submitted until 14 January
up to 14 January 2019. 142 2019.
The NHF’s submission to the 2018 Budget called on the Government to

commit to deliver at least 50% affordable housing on all publicly owned
land:
138
139
Cm 9352, Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017, para A47
140
HC 766, Tenth Report of 2017-19, 13 September 2018, para 118
141
142
MHCLG, Planning reform: supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of
new homes, October 2018
We argue that the Government should:

• Direct Homes England to deliver 50% affordable housing
across its land disposal and development programme.
Aligning the Land Development and Disposal Plan with the
Affordable Homes Programme could help ensure both
meet their targets.
• Introduce a target of 50% affordable housing into the
remaining years of the Public Land for Housing Programme
(2015-2020). Post 2020, the successor to the Public Land
for Housing programme should have affordable housing at
its heart.
• Incentivise local authorities to offer fast-track planning
approval for developments that offer at least 50%
affordable housing on public land.
• Update guidance on ‘best consideration’ so that it’s clear
that public land can be sold with conditions attached on
affordable housing provision. This would reassure public
bodies that they are entitled to set a price for their land
that can support delivery of 50% affordable housing. 143
Direct commissioning
Housing organisations welcomed the inclusion of housing development
The 2015
in the Coalition Government’s National Infrastructure Plan 2014 Government
(published on 2 December 2014). This plan set out an intention to trial a launched a £45m
new delivery model with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA, Land Release Fund
now Homes England) taking the lead role. Essentially, direct and an Accelerated
commissioning involves Homes England leading on site delivery (public Construction
land) on which the development of new homes is directly commissioned Programme. (White
by Government. An extension of direct commissioning was announced Paper para 1.26).
on 4 January 2016. 144 This approach was also aimed at supporting
smaller companies and new entrants to the housebuilding market.
The Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs called for direct
commissioning to form a bigger part of the housebuilding
programme:
We welcome the trial of direct commissioning but it should be a
much bigger part of the housebuilding programme. The
implementation of our recommendations on the financing of local
authority building would help with this. Direct commissioning
would also provide opportunities for smaller builders. 145
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee questioned
the Chairman of the HCA (now Homes England), Sir Edward Lister,
about progress with the pilots during its inquiry into capacity in the
homebuilding industry over 2016-17. Sir Edward said that progress had
been slower that they would have liked. 146 Direct commissioning
appears to have been overtaken by the accelerated construction
143
144
PM: The Government will directly build affordable homes, 4 January 2016
145
146
HC 46, Tenth Report of 2016-17, 29 April 2017, para 46
programme. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) confirmed a

reduction in funding for this program in its November 2017 report. 147
New Towns and Garden Cities
The Conservative Manifesto 2015 contained a commitment to support
The White Paper
locally-led garden cities and towns in places where communities want
said the
them. The package of support available was set out in the prospectus: Government would
Locally-led Garden Villages, Towns and Cities (March 2016). The aim is legislate to allow
for developments to take place on brownfield and/or public land. There locally accountable
is a commitment to work with bidders in exchange for guaranteed New Town
delivery; additional planning freedoms may be available to support Development
housing growth in certain circumstances. Corporations to be
set up (para 1.36).
The Lyons Housing Review (2014) referred to “a growing consensus, Following a
clearly reflected in the evidence to this review that a new programme of consultation
Garden Cities and New Towns would make an important contribution exercise, new
to delivering the homes we need.” 148 Regulations came
into force on 23
Dame Kate Barker also said she supported a return to thinking about
July 2018.
new towns in her evidence to the Treasury Select Committee:
Dame Kate Barker: There are two things I would favour the
most. One would be a return to thinking about new towns. I
stress “towns” rather than villages. I am not opposed to garden
villages, because we need a whole range of solutions. In some
ways, however, I do not find them totally attractive, because we
have a view in England—maybe it is not right—that what we like
is quite close urban areas and then open countryside. While
garden villages remove the objection that you are building next to
somebody, they will inevitably impinge on open countryside. They
may very well not be places large enough to sustain a secondary
school, which means you have to bus children all around. They
may not be places where there is huge local economic activity.
Chair: I also mentioned expansion of existing villages.
Dame Kate Barker: Yes, I would very much prefer to see existing
towns and villages expanded rather than moved to garden
villages, given some thought about the appropriate transport links
and, as I say, education. 149
Dame Kate emphasised that she would want to see “as much land as
possible brought in at existing use value” to use the resultant planning
gain to fund infrastructure. 150
New powers introduced on 23 July 2018 mean that councils can now
seek Government approval to launch a New Town Development
Corporation which will be responsible for delivering new towns and
garden communities in their area. The measure is described as “part of
the government’s wide-ranging programme of planning reform and
147
OBR, Economic and Fiscal Outlook, November 2017, para 4.111
148
149
150
Ibid., Q8
targeted funding to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-

2020s.” 151 Dominic Raab said:
We need to build the homes our communities need and I’m
committed to giving councils the tools they need to deliver.
That’s why we’re giving councils the option of applying to
establish development corporations. These will be locally
accountable and must listen to the views of the community to
ensure that the right homes are built in the right places. 152
The Government is consulting 153 on draft guidance on the use of New
Town Compulsory Purchase Order powers to “provide additional clarity
and certainty to those with an interest in proposed new settlements,
including promoters, investors, infrastructure providers, landowners and
local communities.” 154
The Autumn Budget 2017 said:
The government will bring together public and private capital to
build five new garden towns, using appropriate delivery vehicles
Paragraph 72 of the
such as development corporations, including in areas of high
demand such as the South East. 155 revised NPPF
encourages
In December 2017, the then Housing Minister, Alok Sharma, said that authorities to
the Government was supporting “24 locally-led garden cities, towns take a strategic
and villages, which have the potential to deliver around 220,000 approach to
homes.” He announced a further £3 million to support the delivery of developing new
14 garden villages as part of the existing programme. 156 settlements.
The Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, announced a new garden

communities programme on 15 August 2018. 157
3.3 Funding infrastructure

A large-scale housebuilding programme requires investment in
infrastructure. Shelter and KPMG (2015) were critical of the failure to
recognise housing formally as a national infrastructure asset and “a
The Housing White
particularly effective route to economic growth.” 158 The Autumn
Paper committed to
Statement 2016 announced a new Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) of a more coordinated
£2.3 billion by 2020-21: approach across
…funded by the NPIF [national productivity investment fund] and government to
allocated to local government on a competitive basis, will provide provide the right
infrastructure targeted at unlocking new private house building in infrastructure to
the areas where housing need is greatest. This will deliver up to unlock housing
100,000 new homes. The government will also examine options delivery. (para 2.18)
151
MHCLG, New powers for councils to deliver new homes for local families, 4 June
2018
152
Ibid.
153
MHCLG, Planning reform: supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of
new homes, October 2018 (consultation closes on 14 January 2019)
154
155
HC 587, 23 November 2017, para 5.17
156
DCLG Press Release, 4 December 2017
157
MHCLG Press Release, 15 August 2018
158
government, p46
to ensure that other government transport funding better

supports housing growth. 159
Bidding for the HIF opened in 2017. The Autumn Budget 2017 allocated
an additional £2.7bn to bring total funding up to £5bn. 160 Budget 2018
announced a further £500 million for the HIF bringing total funding to
£5.5 billion “unlocking up to 650,000 new homes”. 161
The Lyons Housing Review (2014) pointed out that much of the
infrastructure for the post-1949 New Town developments was publicly
funded with Government loans over 60 years. 162 Lyons went on:
A key challenge will be balancing the large up-front infrastructure
costs against the longer term receipts and uplift. The lessons from
the New Towns and the financial modelling conducted by some
entrants to the Wolfson Prize shows that new settlements could
be largely self-financing over the long term if they have an
effective means of land value capture. This will need to be
underpinned by reforms to powers for compulsory purchase
which we propose. However, up-front financing will be required
to support early, up-front costs incurred by the new
development. 163
The Housing & Finance Institute launched a pilot scheme with the aim
of unblocking infrastructure delays on housing developments. The
scheme brought together various parties and was focused on housing
developments that had been delayed due to a lack of water, sewage,
electricity, gas or road connectivity. In November 2017, the Institute
published a consultation paper which set out eight core areas of
recommendations from its research work. The consultation ran until
31 December 2017. 164
Fixing our broken housing market said that the Government would
amend national planning policy so that local authorities will be
expected to identify development opportunities arising out of
new infrastructure. The NPPF published on 24 July 2018 states:
The supply of large numbers of new homes can often be best
achieved through planning for larger scale development, such as
new settlements or significant extensions to existing villages and
towns, provided they are well located and designed, and
supported by the necessary infrastructure and facilities. Working
with the support of their communities, and with other authorities
if appropriate, strategic policy-making authorities should identify
suitable locations for such development where this can help to
meet identified needs in a sustainable way. In doing so, they
should:
a) consider the opportunities presented by existing or planned
investment in infrastructure, the area’s economic potential and
the scope for net environmental gains… 165
159
Autumn Statement 2016, para 3.11
160
161
HC 1629, October 2018, para 4.56
162
163
Ibid., p93
164
Housing & Finance Institute, Proposed recommendations to improve the delivery of
housing related infrastructure, November 2017
165
MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework, 24 July 2018, para 72
The revised NPPF requires local plans to set out policy requirements for
developer contributions towards infrastructure and affordable
housing:
Plans should set out the contributions expected from
development. This should include setting out the levels and types
of affordable housing provision required, along with other
infrastructure (such as that needed for education, health,
transport, flood and water management, green and digital
infrastructure). Such policies should not undermine the
deliverability of the plan. 166
There is also recognition in the revised NPPF of the need for authorities
to plan for the provision of high quality digital infrastructure:
Advanced, high quality and reliable communications infrastructure
is essential for economic growth and social well-being. Planning
policies and decisions should support the expansion of electronic
communications networks, including next generation mobile
technology (such as 5G) and full fibre broadband connections.
Policies should set out how high quality digital infrastructure,
providing access to services from a range of providers, is expected
to be delivered and upgraded over time; and should prioritise full
fibre connections to existing and new developments (as these
connections will, in almost all cases, provide the optimum
solution). 167
Section 3.2 of this paper touches on the debate around capturing
increases in land value for the public benefit once planning permission is
granted. Currently, the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and section
106 agreements (see section 3.4 below) are the main means through
which this increase in value is captured. Evidence submitted to the
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into
land value capture by the Chartered Institute of Housing argued that
there is scope for an improved system to achieve a higher contribution
towards the cost of infrastructure:
Analysis by the Centre for Progressive Capitalism identified that
Section 106 agreements and CIL together captured £2.8 billion of
the increase in land value for public benefit, leaving £9.3 billion as
windfall profit, largely accruing to landowners/traders. They
estimate that, at that rate, £185 billion of increased value over the
next 20 years would be lost, which otherwise would be able to
contribute towards the infrastructure required for that
development, and the benefit of local communities. A system is
required that enables a more balanced share of the increase in
land value between landowner, developer and the public. 168
The Committee made several recommendations on funding
infrastructure for housing developments. These include reforms to
section 106 and CIL (see section 3.4 below), and:
• Consideration to be given to introducing a Local Infrastructure
Tariff (LIT). The Government said it would continue to explore
166
167
168
Written evidence submitted by the Chartered Institute of Housing to the HCLG
Committee inquiry into land value capture, LVC 052, March 2018
options, including a LIT but that there is no precise model for it

currently. 169
• Further consideration of how Strategic Infrastructure Tariffs (SITs)
could be used to capture value for specific large infrastructure
projects. The Government consulted on proposals to take forward
SITs for Combined Authorities earlier in 2018 – a summary of
responses and the Government response was published in
October 2018. 170 In the longer term there is an intention to allow
joint planning committees to charge the SIT and to “review
options for giving other groups the power to levy a tariff.”
Guidance will be amended to encourage groups of charging
authorities to use existing powers to support the delivery of
strategic infrastructure by pooling their local CIL receipts. 171
• Build on reforms to the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO)process
to make it faster and less expensive. The Committee said that CPO
powers could be important in enabling the provision of necessary
infrastructure on sites. The Government confirmed that CPO
powers would be kept under review. 172
• Consideration of how Tax Increment Financing (TIF) could be used
“more extensively to fund infrastructure in enterprise zones”. The
Government said that there are no plans to change this
process. 173
3.4 The planning system

The planning system in England is frequently cited as a ‘blocker’ to
achieving the necessary rates of housing delivery. The planning system
regulates, amongst other things, where housing development takes
place, density levels, the necessary supporting infrastructure, and the
obligation to provide a proportion of affordable housing as part of a
development.
It is an area that has attracted a good deal of Government attention.
For an overview of
The Coalition Government abolished nationally set housing targets and the revised NPPF
regional planning bodies with the Localism Act 2011. National planning see Library paper:
policy is now set out in the Government’s National Planning Policy What next for
Framework (NPPF), originally published in March 2012 and revised on planning in
24 July 2018. The NPPF and its accompanying Planning Practice England? The
Guidance gives some broad guidance to local authorities about National Planning
calculating the supply of housing. Policy Framework.
Following the election of the Conservative Government in May 2015,

there were several planning related consultations and announcements.
Changes to the planning system by the 2015 Government have already
been made through the Housing and Planning Act 2016 and Energy Act
2016. Additional reforms were included in the Neighbourhood
Planning Act 2017.
169
170
MHCLG, Government response to supporting housing delivery through developer
contributions, October 2018
171
172
Ibid., paras 23-28
173
Ibid., para 38
The 2015 Government’s response to the Lords Economic Affairs

Committee’s report Building More Homes (2016), set out how the
reforms made up to that point had impacted:
The Government strongly believes that our planning reforms to
date have done much to streamline the planning system and
remove barriers to development. 83 per cent of major applications
were determined on time between April and June 2016, which is
the highest percentage on record.
In addition, in the year to 30 June 2016, the reformed planning
system has given permission for 277,000 new homes. Finally, our
reforms to Permitted Development Rights have led to a strong
contribution to housing supply from conversions and changes of
use in addition to new house building. 174
The response went on say that the forthcoming Housing White Paper
“will set out a further package of reforms to ensure that our planning
system better supports housing delivery. 175 Fixing our broken housing
market was published in February 2017. A summary of its proposals on
planning, together with initial reactions, can be found in Library briefing
paper Planning reform in the housing white paper (7896).
As noted above, a revised version of the NPPF was published on 24 July
2018.
There is no groundswell of support for another round of major
planning reform. The industry requires certainty and where this is
lacking housing supply can be constrained. The Lyons housing review
(2014) said:
The evidence submitted to the review overwhelmingly cautioned
against further fundamental and wholesale reform of the system
which would lead to widespread uncertainty and undermine a
rapid increase in housing supply. 176
Witnesses to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee expressed a variety
of opinions on the need for planning reforms. Some thought that
reform was ‘critical’ while others thought that planning ‘was not a
problem’. 177
Planning conditions
Planning is clearly an essential part of the delivery process, but many
The number of
argue that reforms to planning alone will not provide the answer to the planning
housing supply crisis. The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has pointed permissions granted
to an increase in the number of planning permissions granted, has increased but
but still describes the planning system as a ‘constraint:’ this does not mean
Permissions for 76,242 homes were granted in England between that work on those
July and September, with the total number for the 12 months to sites will start
September reaching 289,011, the highest since the survey began quickly.
in 2006.
174
175
Ibid.
176
Lyons housing review, 2014 p43
177
[…]
This is an encouraging headline figure but few of those recently
permitted will yet be buildable. Permissions are recorded once one
of the ‘conditions’ attached to them by the Local Authority is
satisfied- or ‘discharged’. Many will have dozens of ‘pre-
commencement’ conditions attached and so builders will not
legally be entitled to commence construction until they are all
discharged- a process which could take some months and is
dependent on the ability and capacity of the authority to provide
this service. 178
The HBF welcomed measures in the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017
The Secretary of
to introduce a new process for agreeing pre-commencement conditions, State has gained
but said it would like to see a limit on the number of conditions powers to prohibit
authorities can impose, and authorities prevented from imposing conditions that do
‘spurious’ conditions that, the HBF argues, could be dealt with later in not meet national
the construction process to enable builders to get on site more quickly: policy tests. A
Many conditions – such as the Local Authority needing to approve
deemed discharge
a final children’s play area design – should not be holding up provision has
building work and could be agreed once work is underway operated since
through the imposition of a ‘pre-occupation’ condition. 2015.
Information collected by HBF shows how authorities are holding
up construction with demands for scale drawings of the
placement of picnic tables and refuse bins in children’s play areas
and detailed statements on the ‘engagement and recruitment of
local artists’ to provide public art on the new estate. 179
A consultation process ran between 30 January and 27 February 2018
during which comments were invited on draft regulations to create an
exemption to the requirement in the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017
that local planning authorities obtain the written agreement of an
applicant before imposing a pre-commencement condition on a grant
of planning permission. 180 The Government response to the consultation
exercise was published in May 2018. The Town and Country Planning
(Pre-commencement Conditions) Regulations 2018 have been made
and came into force on 1 October 2018.
178
HBF, New home planning ‘permissions’ up – but system remains a constraint, 3
January 2017
179
Ibid.
180
MHCLG, Improving the use of planning conditions: consultation on draft
regulations, January 2018
Section 106 agreements and the Community

Infrastructure Levy
There is a divergence of opinion on the merits of section 106 181 and
There is a
Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) 182 requirements. Section 106 has divergence of
been credited with ensuring a substantial supply of affordable housing; opinion on the
in 2016/17 more than 18,000 affordable homes in England were merits of section
provided through planning gain, representing 43% of the total. 183 Data 106 agreements
from the National Housing Federation’s survey of housing associations and Community
indicates the importance of section 106’s contribution to affordable Infrastructure Levy.
housing development in 2017/18:
• 48% (17,065) of affordable starts were delivered through
Section 106 agreements
• 49% (17,388) of affordable completions were delivered
through Section 106 agreements 184
It is worth noting that the extent to which section 106 can be used to
deliver affordable housing will inevitably be limited where private
housing development is already constrained.
Witnesses to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee commended the
flexibility of CIL. However, others, including small builders, believe that
section 106 and CIL are ineffective and act as an obstacle to
development. One company, Pocket Living, told the Committee that it
took 16 weeks to get planning consent and a further 22-44 weeks to
negotiate the section 106 agreement. 185 Small builders face the same
level of complexity as larger developers – the Committee was told that
an increasing number buy-in expertise to navigate the system. 186
David Orr, then CEO of the National Housing Federation, referred to the
complexity of section 106 agreements which make it difficult to
calculate the value of the contributions made. Professor Paul Cheshire
of the London School of Economics told the Committee that section
106 and CIL should be replaced by a single, national development
charge of 20% of the sale value of land. 187
The Lords Committee recommended that, as part of its ongoing reviews
of planning obligations and CIL, the Government should aim for
simplicity, transparency and a system that is responsive to
181
Developers and local authorities agree a contract relevant to a specific development
that will mitigate its impact. This can include the provision of affordable housing and
payment for additional infrastructure.
182
A local authority may set a levy on all new building in their area. The money raised is
used to fund general infrastructure.
183
Stephens; Perry; Wilcox; Williams and Young, 2018 UK Housing Review, Heriot-Watt
University and the Chartered Institute of Housing, March 2018, p65
184
NHF, How many homes did housing associations deliver in 2017/18? June 2018
185
186
Ibid., para 116
187
Ibid., paras 140-46
smaller builders. The value of developer contributions should act as a

sufficient incentive to local authorities to grant planning permission. 188
In November 2015, the Government asked Liz Peace, former chief
executive at British Property Federation, to chair an independent group
to conduct a review of the CIL. The aim was to assess the extent to
which CIL does or can provide an effective mechanism for funding
infrastructure, and to recommend changes. 189 The group’s report was
submitted to Ministers in October 2016 and published in February
2017. 190
The Incidence, Value and Delivery of Planning Obligations and
Community Infrastructure Levy in England in 2016-17 was published by
MHCLG on 5 March 2018. At the same time, the Ministry launched
a consultation on proposals to reform developer contributions to
support housing delivery and infrastructure – a summary of
responses and the Government response was published in October
2018. 191
The consultation paper set out the perceived shortcomings of the
existing system, including delay in negotiating and renegotiating section
106 planning obligations and lack of transparency. It set out the
Government’s objectives for reform, centred on reducing complexity
and increasing certainty; supporting swifter development; increasing
market responsiveness; improving transparency; and allowing local
authorities to introduce a Strategic Infrastructure Tariff to help fund or
mitigate strategic infrastructure. Specifically, the restriction on pooling
section 106 planning obligations would be lifted in certain
circumstances to promote flexibility. The consultation paper also
referred to the possibility of nationally set contributions to affordable
housing:
In the longer term, the Government will continue to explore
options for going further. One option could be for contributions
to affordable housing and infrastructure to be set nationally, and
to be non-negotiable. 192
After considering responses to the consultation exercise, the
Government announced plans to build on reforms in the NPPF by
“introducing legislative reforms to developer contributions.” 193
Consultation will take place on draft regulations “in due course”. A
summary of the main measures the Government intends to take
forward is provided below:
188
189
HM Government, Review of the Community Infrastructure Levy: Terms of Reference,
November 2015
190
MHCLG, Community Infrastructure Levy review: report to government, 7 February
2017
191
contributions, October 2018
192
MHCLG, Supporting housing deliver through developer contributions, 5 March 2018
193
contributions, October 2018, p1
• Improved guidance on viability to support local authorities to

adopt and revise CIL charging schedules. 194
• Regulations will continue to require charging authorities to
consult on draft charging schedules for CIL but will remove the
statutory requirement for two separate rounds of consultation in
every circumstance. 195
• The section 106 pooling restriction will be lifted in all areas. To
ensure the CIL remains an effective mechanism for collecting
contributions towards addressing the cumulative impact of
development, “the Government will ensure measures are in place
to incentivise uptake and continued use of the Levy.” 196
• Changes to the penalties associated with the failure to submit a
Commencement Notice prior to development being started. 197
• Guidance will be updated to support local authorities to set
differential rates of CIL related to the existing use of land more
effectively. 198
• There will be further consultation on the indexation of CIL
rates. 199
• Authorities will be required to report on developer contributions
from the CIL and section 106 planning obligations through the
Infrastructure Funding Statement. 200 Authorities will be able to
seek a fee from applicants towards monitoring planning
obligations. 201
• Guidance will be amended to encourage groups of charging
authorities to use existing powers to support the delivery of
strategic infrastructure by pooling their local CIL receipts. 202
Viability tests
There has been an increased focus on the role viability tests can play
where developers seek to reduce/remove the affordable housing
contribution from a proposed development. To assist a sluggish housing
market in the wake of the financial crisis, the Coalition Government
acted to allow certain section 106 agreements to be renegotiated where
they rendered a scheme unviable – this was a temporary measure.
The UK Housing Review 2018 considered some examples of developers
using viability assessments to reduce their affordable housing
contributions and concluded that, although the examples looked at
were “illustrative rather than representative” …this is “clearly an area of
potentially great significance”. 203
194
Ibid., para 10
195
Ibid., para 15
196
Ibid., para 25
197
Ibid., para 31
198
Ibid., para 42
199
Ibid., para 46
200
Ibid., para 51
201
Ibid., para 52
202
Ibid., paras 57-60
203
Stephens; Perry; Wilcox; Williams and Young, 2018 UK Housing Review, Heriot-Watt
University and the Chartered Institute of Housing, March 2018, p26
The New Economics Foundation has also recommended the closure of

“viability loopholes” as a way of reducing the cost of land:
Reforming the planning system by closing viability loopholes,
which enables developers to evade building affordable housing,
and strengthening the obligations on developers are ways that
land price increases can be collectivised. Developers would have to
factor these more fixed contributions to affordable housing and
other community benefits into their bids on land, making it
cheaper overall. 204
The planning practice guidance on the use of viability tests was updated
alongside the publication of the revised NPPF on 24 July 2018. The
guidance makes it clear that plans should set out “the levels and types
of affordable housing provision required, along with other
infrastructure” and goes on:
Policy requirements should be clear so that they can be accurately
accounted for in the price paid for land. To provide this certainty,
affordable housing requirements should be expressed as a single
figure rather than a range. Different requirements may be set for
different types of site or types of development.
[…]
It is the responsibility of site promoters to engage in plan making,
take into account any costs including their own profit
expectations and risks, and ensure that proposals for development
are policy compliant. It is important for developers and other
parties buying (or interested in buying) land to have regard to the
total cumulative cost of all relevant policies when agreeing a price
for the land. Under no circumstances will the price paid for
land be a relevant justification for failing to accord with
relevant policies in the plan. 205
The NHF has said that if the changes on viability are well implemented
they “should increase the numbers of affordable homes”. 206 There is still
some concern about the ‘front-loading’ of the process:
I’m still concerned though that ‘front loading’ the process means
considerable efforts are required upfront to assessment viability.
That's a big ask for hard-pressed local authorities who have only
just managed to achieve 50% coverage of up-to-date local plans.
And the options for application-specific assessment remains. 207
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee’s
inquiry into land value capture welcomed moves to increase
transparency in the viability process but emphasised “the need to
ensure the changes lead to real improvements”. The Committee asked
for a report on the impact of these reforms from Government in
12 months’ time. The Government agreed to report back at the end of
2019. 208
204
205
MHCLG, Planning Practice Guidance – Viability, 24 July 2018
206
NHF, Initial thoughts on the new National Planning Policy Framework, 26 July 2018
207
Ibid.
208
Resourcing authorities’ planning capacity

One area where there appears to be a good deal of agreement in the
Planning
industry is on the need for proper resourcing of local authority departments are
planning departments. The Lords Economic Affairs Committee noted under resourced
that cuts in local government expenditure “have fallen particularly and under staffed.
heavily on planning departments.” 209 Local authority witnesses told the The balance of
Committee that they were “under resourced and “desperately short of power in
…staff.” There is a view that the balance of power has shifted negotiations has
towards developers when negotiating planning matters. 210 shifted towards
developers.
A potential solution would be to introduce a more flexible planning
fee system to allow authorities to invest in their planning
capacity. The Lords Economic Affairs Committee recommended that
the Government:
a) allows local authorities to set and vary planning fees
in accordance with the needs of their local area. To
prevent abuse there should be an upper limit or cap
on the level of fees. To allow sufficient discretion to
local authorities, this cap should be significantly
higher than the current fees that can be charged;
and
b) provides that the money raised from these fees is
ring-fenced for expenditure on planning and
development.
Fixing our broken housing market set out the Government’s intention to
increase nationally set planning fees:
Local authorities will be able to increase fees by 20% from July
2017 if they commit to invest the additional fee income in their
planning department. We are also minded to allow an increase of Planning authorities
a further 20% for those authorities who are delivering the homes have been able to
their communities need and we will consult further on the detail. charge higher fees
Alongside we will keep the resourcing of local authority planning
since 17 January
departments, and where fees can be charged, under review. 211
2018. Based on
The 20% fee increase was introduced on 17 January 2018. activity at that time,
Consultation on additional increases in planning application fees in the uplift was
those areas where local planning authorities are delivering the homes estimated to
their communities need was launched in September 2017. 212 A generate over
summary of responses to this process, together with the Government’s £75 million of
additional fee
view on the way forward was published on 5 March 2018. 213 The
income annually.
Government said it would assess the impact of the fee increase
introduced in January when considering any further increases. 214
209
210
Ibid., para 120
211
212
MHCLG, Planning for the right homes in the right places: consultation proposals, 14
September 2017
213
MHCLG, Government response to the Planning for the right homes in the right
places consultation, 5 March 2018
214
Ibid., p31
The Housing White Paper also set out an intention to consult on the
Revised Planning
introduction of a fee for making a planning appeal on the basis that Practice Guidance
“unnecessary appeals can be a source of delay and waste taxpayer’s has a section on
money.” 215 Fees for planning
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee raised applications.
the capacity of local authority planning departments in its report on
Land Value Capture (September 2018). The Government referred to the
increase in fees in January 2018, and referred to a further consultation:
The Government consultation “Planning for the right homes in
the right places” sought views on the principle of introducing a
further 20 per cent increase for those authorities who are
delivering the homes their communities need. We are currently
considering the options in taking forward any future fee
increase. 216
Delivering a variety of sites for development

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) has proposed that authorities
should not rely on one large site to meet local housing needs
given the significant infrastructure requirements that this can entail, and
should instead be approving a range of site sizes. 217 This position was
supported in a report from Nathaniel Litchfield & Partners (NPL), Start to
Finish – How quickly do large-scale housing sites deliver? (November
2016):
Large-scale sites can be an attractive proposition for plan-makers.
With just one allocation of several thousand homes, a district can
– at least on paper – meet a significant proportion of its housing
requirement over a sustained period. Their scale means delivery of
the infrastructure and local employment opportunities needed to
sustain mixed communities.
But large-scale sites are not a silver bullet. Their scale, complexity
and (in some cases) up-front infrastructure costs means they are
not always easy to kick start. And once up and running, there is a
need to be realistic about how quickly they can deliver new
homes. Past decades have seen too many large-scale
developments failing to deliver as quickly as expected, and gaps in
housing land supply have opened up as a result. 218
NLP suggest that if authorities’ Local Plans and five-year land
assessments are placing reliance on large-scale developments, including
Garden Towns and Villages, to meet housing need, then “the
assumptions they use about when and how quickly such sites will
deliver new homes will need to be properly justified.” 219
215
216
217
HBF, New home planning ‘permissions’ up – but system remains a constraint, 3
January 2017
218
NLP, Start to Finish – How quickly do large-scale housing sites deliver?, November
2016 p1
219
Ibid.
On 5 March 2018, the Government announced proposed revisions to

Smaller sites are
the NPPF to encourage the use of smaller sites. The revised NPPF
often built out
(2018) says that authorities should:
relatively quickly
• identify, through the development plan and brownfield registers, and can make an
land to accommodate at least 10% of their housing requirement important
on sites no larger than one hectare; unless it can be shown, contribution to
through the preparation of relevant plan policies, that there are meeting the
strong reasons why this 10% target cannot be achieved; housing
requirement of the
• use tools such as area-wide design assessments and Local area.
Development Orders to help bring small and medium sized sites
forward;
• support the development of windfall sites through their policies
and decisions – giving great weight to the benefits of using
suitable sites within existing settlements for homes; and
• work with developers to encourage the sub-division of large sites
where this could help to speed up the delivery of homes. 220
The NHF has raised some potential issues with the impact of the NPPF
on securing affordable housing in rural areas:
Proposals for ‘entry-level exception sites’ are retained in the final
NPPF – and threaten the established rural exception site policy.
The latter have stricter affordability and local connection criteria,
and are already at odds with some landowners' land price
expectations. Entry-level exception sites are likely to fetch higher
prices, making the already-demanding process of securing rural
exception sites even harder.
Also on small sites, the Government has maintained the
exemption on affordable housing contributions from ‘non-major’
(i.e. fewer than 10 homes) developments, with some limited
exceptions. This prolongs the challenge of providing affordable
rural homes where market developments tend to be smaller. 221
The duty to cooperate and housing market areas

The Lyons Housing Review (2014) called for more cooperation across
Provisions in the
local authority boundaries when identifying land suitable for Neighbourhood
development: Planning Act 2017
The responsibility of councils to identify sufficient land for new will allow the
homes in local plans should be strengthened, as should their Secretary of State
ability to deliver these plans. Where there is a failure to cooperate to direct a group of
across boundaries to meet needs in a housing market area, authorities to work
councils will be required to produce a joint strategic plan, with the together to produce
Secretary of State having the ability to intervene and instruct the a joint plan.
Planning Inspectorate to ensure that it happens. This will address
the weaknesses in the current Duty to Cooperate and ensure that
places that need it can exercise a “Right to Grow”. 222
The duty to cooperate has been criticised for not being a duty of any
substance. 223 It is a duty which does not require agreement, it simply
requires that evidence is shown that attempts to cooperate have been
220
221
222
223
“The duty to cooperate: What next?” The Planner 14 March 2016
made. As noted in an article in the Planner, there is little incentive for a

neighbouring authority to cooperate and its enforcement relies on
planning inspectors taking a “robust approach”. 224
In its final report to Government, the Local Plans Expert Review Group
(LPEG) 225 said that it received “strong representations” that the duty to
cooperate was “not effective in ensuring agreement between
neighbouring authorities about the distribution of housing needs and
that this was one of the most significant constraints to effective plan
making.” 226 The LPEG recommended changes to planning policies to
strengthen the duty, as well as an expectation that where there has
been no agreement across boundaries on distributing housing needs,
the Government should take and use powers to direct the preparation
of a high level Joint Local Plan for the housing market area. 227
Shelter and KPMG also referred to the limitations of local boundaries in
Building the homes we need: a programme for the 2015 government:
If local authorities could capture more of the returns of their
spending across a functional economic or “travel to work” area, it
may incentivise those areas usually resistant to a certain type of
development to coordinate. 228
The NPPF has been amended to include an expectation that statements
of common ground will be prepared in line with planning guidance:
In order to demonstrate effective and on-going joint working,
strategic policymaking authorities should prepare and maintain
one or more statements of common ground, documenting the
cross-boundary matters being addressed and progress in
cooperating to address these. These should be produced using the
approach set out in national planning guidance, and be made
publicly available throughout the plan-making process to provide
transparency. 229
Incentives to develop: speeding up and monitoring

build-out rates
Witnesses to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee inquiry considered
that the system does not provide authorities with sufficient
incentives to allow developments and that this lack of incentives
also affects local residents and developers. Three linked problems were
identified:
• Local opposition creates pressure on local councils to resist
development.
224
“The duty to cooperate: What next?” The Planner 14 March 2016
225
The Local Plans Expert Group (LPEG) was established by the then Communities
Secretary, Greg Clark and the Minister of Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis MP,
in September 2015, with a remit to consider how local plan making can be made
more efficient and effective.
226
Local Plans Expert Review Group, Local Plans Report to Government,
March 2016, p3
227
Ibid.
228
government, p48
229
• The lack of any immediate financial benefit to the local authority

from the planning process. In contrast, a ‘windfall’ created by the
granting of planning permission is retained by the landowner. The
Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) can act to address this
disparity but it is not transparent, and it is not always clear to
residents what a development has funded. One suggestion is to
reward developing authorities with the retention of
business rates.
• A lack of incentives for builders to develop permissioned land. 230
In terms of solutions, there is some support for a ‘use it or lose it’
approach. For example, the Labour Party Manifesto 2015 included a
commitment to:
…introduce greater transparency in the land market and give
local authorities new ‘use it or lose it’ powers to encourage
developers to build. 231
The Lyons Housing Review (2014) proposed disincentives to holding
a planning permission and not building it out, in addition to
measures to incentivise swift delivery of land allocated in a plan,
for example:
• Shortening the lifetime of planning permission to 2 years with
higher fees for renewal.
• Requiring greater substantive progress to demonstrate that works
have started on site.
• Giving local authorities the option to charge Council Tax on the
land owner in respect of the number of proposed dwellings where
development has not started on sites with planning permission
within an expected timeframe.
• Compulsory Purchase Order powers strengthened and streamlined
to make it easier for public bodies to acquire land where it is not
brought forward and where it is a priority for development. 232
These options were also considered by the Lords Economic Affairs
Committee. Developers said that they were not in favour of these
schemes, arguing that a range of factors outside their control can
influence build-out rates. 233 The Committee supported giving local
authorities the power to levy Council Tax on developments that
remain incomplete within a given time period. 234 The
Government’s response did not address this specific recommendation
but said that the Housing White Paper would set out a further package
of reforms to “ensure that our planning system better supports housing
delivery”. 235 The Government also said: “We are also clear that it is the
230
Homes, HL Paper 20, 15 July 2016, paras 110-14
231
Labour Party Manifesto 2015, p46
232
233
Homes, HL Paper 20, 15 July 2016, paras 131-33
234
Ibid., para 139
235
responsibility of the house building industry to be more transparent and

forthcoming in agreeing a trajectory for build-out rates on sites with
local authorities.” 236 The revised NPPF (July 2018) sets out an
expectation of how authorities should monitor the supply and
delivery of new housing within their areas:
To maintain the supply of housing, local planning authorities
should monitor progress in building out sites which have
permission. Where the Housing Delivery Test indicates that
delivery has fallen below 95% of the local planning authority’s
housing requirement over the previous three years, the authority
should prepare an action plan in line with national planning
guidance, to assess the causes of underdelivery and identify
actions to increase delivery in future years.
To help ensure that proposals for housing development are
implemented in a timely manner, local planning authorities should
consider imposing a planning condition providing that
development must begin within a timescale shorter than the
relevant default period, where this would expedite the
development without threatening its deliverability or viability. For
major development involving the provision of housing, local
planning authorities should also assess why any earlier grant of
planning permission for a similar development on the same site
did not start. 237
More information on the Housing Delivery Test can be found in section
4.2 of this paper.
Lyons specifically commented on the need to persuade communities
of the benefits of housing development:
The public is frequently concerned that houses are often built in
the wrong place, for the wrong people and without adequate
attention to the pressures created for existing infrastructure. As
new housing changes and shapes the places in which people live,
communities should make the decisions about how they grow. It
is the job of elected local authorities to do this with their
communities and to ensure the homes they need are provided.
We therefore recommend that local authorities play a much more
energetic role in leading housing development for their
communities. 238
Also relevant here are references in the previous section to the
desirability of incentives to encourage authorities to work across The LGA argues
that the planning
boundaries with a better focus on functional economic areas:
system is not a
In housing, the responsibility for need assessments and land use barrier and that
planning rests at the individual local authority level, when the developers with
reality is that people live and work across administrative permissioned land
boundaries. 239 are failing to build it
January 2018 saw the publication of updated data commissioned by the out.
Local Government Association (LGA) which purported to show an
increase in unimplemented planning permissions in England and Wales
236
Ibid.
237
MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework, 24 July 2018, paras 75-76
238
239
government, p48
from 365,146 in 2015/16 to 423,544 in 2016/17, representing an

increase of 16%. 240 Based on this data, the LGA argues that “the
planning system is not a barrier to building…councils are
approving nine in every 10 planning applications.” 241 Instead, the
LGA is calling for councils to have more powers to deal with unbuilt
land which has planning permission. 242
Fixing our broken housing market (February 2017) said that the
Government wanted development to happen as soon as possible
where planning permission is granted. 243 The White Paper
contained proposals aimed at achieving this, several of which picked up
on some of the themes set out above. The outcome of consultation on
these proposals was announced on 5 March 2018 and relevant changes
have now been included in the revised NPPF published on 24 July 2018:
• The Government considered the implications of amending the
NPPF to encourage authorities to shorten the timescale in which
developers should implement planning permission from the
default three years to two years, with an exception where this
could hinder viability. 244 Following mixed responses, the NPPF has
been amended to “encourage local authorities to consider
shorter timescales for implementing planning permissions
where appropriate.” 245
• A proposal to simplify and speed up the completion notice
process under which planning permission can be withdrawn
where no substantive progress is made on a site 246 is to be taken
Feedback on these
forward through changes to primary legislation when an
proposals
opportunity arises. Guidance will, in the meantime, support local
demonstrated
authorities in their use of completion notices under current
support for more
procedures. 247
transparent data.
• Authorities will have strengthened compulsory purchase powers The Government
which the Government wants to see authorities use to promote said it would
development on stalled sites. Separate consultation will take place continue to explore
on new guidance to encourage authorities to use these powers in opportunities to
this way. 248 increase
transparency on
• Planning application forms have been amended to include housing delivery.
information on estimated start dates and build out rates for Reponses are also
schemes including housing development. 249 informing the
• A duty on developers was proposed to provide planning Letwin review of
authorities with basic information on progress in delivering the build-out rates.
240
LGA, Unimplemented planning permissions: Permissions under construction (units)
England, January 2018
241
LGA Press Release, 16 February 2018
242
Ibid.
243
244
Ibid., para 2.41
245
MHCLG, Government response to the housing White Paper consultation: Fixing our
broken housing market, 5 March 2018, p48
246
247
broken housing market, 5 March 2018, pp48-50
248
249
Ibid., para A97
permitted number of homes after planning permission is

granted. 250
• There was a proposal to add new requirements to the Authority
Monitoring Report produced by local authorities to provide more
standardised information on the delivery of the housing plan. 251
• Consultation has taken place on an amendment to the NPPF to
encourage authorities to consider how realistic it is that a site will
be developed when granting planning permission for housing.
This would be relevant in regard to sites where there is evidence
of previous non-implementation of planning permissions for
housing. 252
• Consultation has taken place on whether an applicant’s track
record in delivering previous housing permissions should be taken
into account in regard to large-scale sites. 253 The NPPF has been
amended to make clear that, for major sites, the planning history
of the site and the non-implementation of earlier similar schemes
“may be a relevant consideration in the determination of an
application.” 254
The Letwin review of gap between housing completions and
planning permissions granted
On 14 January 2018, MHCLG launched an independent review chaired
by Sir Oliver Letwin which is looking to “explain the gap between the
number of planning permissions being granted against those built in
areas of high demand.” 255 Some of the responses received to questions
posed in the Housing White Paper informed the work of this review. 256
Sir Oliver published an Independent review of build out: preliminary
update on 13 March 2018, in which he said that the first stage of the
work would focus on an analysis of the reasons why build out rates “are
as they are”. A draft analysis was published in June 2018: Independent
review of build out: draft analysis – at this point Sir Oliver highlighted
absorption rates on large sites as a key determinant of build-out rates.
The final report was published alongside Budget 2108: Independent
review of build out: final report. Sir Oliver recommended that the
Government should:
• adopt a new set of planning rules specifically designed to
apply to all future large sites (initially those over 1,500
units) in areas of high housing demand, requiring those
developing such sites to provide a diversity of offerings, in
line with diversification principles in a new planning policy
document; and
• establish a National Expert Committee to advise local
authorities on the interpretation of diversity requirements
250
Ibid., para A97
251
Ibid., para A97
252
Ibid., para A99
253
Ibid., para A102
254
255
MHCLG, Independent review to tackle barriers to building, 14 January 2018
256
for large sites and to arbitrate where the diversity

requirements cause an appeal as a result of disagreement
between the local authority and the developer.
• To give the greatest possible chance that the new planning
rules for large sites will have an effect in the near-term I
recommend that the Government should:
─ provide incentives to diversify existing sites of over
1,500 units in areas of high housing demand, by
making any future government funding for house
builders or potential purchasers on such sites
conditional upon the builder accepting a Section 106
agreement which conforms with the new planning
policy for such sites; and
─ consider allocating a small amount of funding to a
large sites viability fund to prevent any interruption
of development on existing large sites that could
otherwise become non-viable for the existing builder
as a result of accepting the new diversity provisions.
• To give the greatest possible chance of significant change
in the build out rates and quality of large scale
development in the longer-term I recommend that the
Government should:
─ introduce a power for local planning authorities in
places with high housing demand to designate
particular areas within their local plans as land which
can be developed only as single large sites, and to
create master plans and design codes for these sites
which will ensure both a high degree of diversity and
good design to promote rapid market absorption
and rapid build out rates;
─ give local authorities clear statutory powers to
purchase the land designated for such large sites
compulsorily at prices which reflect the value of
those sites once they have planning permission and a
master plan that reflect the new diversity
requirements (with guidance for local authorities to
press the diversity requirements to the point where
they generate a maximum residual development
value for the land on these sites of around ten times
existing use value rather than the huge multiples of
existing use value which currently apply); and
─ also give local authorities clear statutory powers to
control the development of such designated large
sites through either of two structures (outlined in
Annex C):
a. the local authority could use a Local Development
Company (LDC) to carry out this development role
by establishing a master plan and design code for
the site, and then bringing in private capital through
a non-recourse special purpose vehicle to pay for the
land and to invest in the infrastructure, before
“parcelling up” the site and selling individual parcels
to particular types of builders/providers offering
housing of different types and different tenures; or
b. the local authority could establish a Local
Authority Master Planner (LAMP) to develop a
master plan and full design code for the site, and
then enable a privately financed Infrastructure

Development Company (IDC) to purchase the land
from the local authority, develop the infrastructure
of housing as in the LDC model. 257
The Government response to the findings will be published in February
2019. 258
Better use of green belt land
Government statistics on green belt land in England for 31 March 2018
estimated that it covered 1.63 million hectares, i.e. around 12.5% of
the land area of England.
The Government’s policy on protection for the green belt is set out in
chapter 13 of the revised NPPF. The fundamental aim of green belt
policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open.
The NPPF states that that the construction of new buildings should be
regarded as “inappropriate” for the green belt, although there are
some exceptions, which are listed. 259
Greenbelt policy is generally regarded as having been effective in
preventing urban sprawl and maintaining a clear physical distinction
between town and country. The 2010 Natural England and CPRE report,
Green Belts: A greener future, concluded green belt policy was “highly
effective” in its principal purpose, but called for “more ambition” to
further enhance the green belt protection for future generations. 260
It is inevitable that discussions about securing a sufficient supply of land
suitable for housing development often turn to the question of whether
some areas of green belt land should be utilised for this purpose. The
question was put to Dame Kate Barker during the Treasury Select
Committee’s evidence session on housing policy:
Dame Kate Barker: I have not said anything about the green
belt. I would not put too much weight on the green belt, on both
sides. The people who do want to build on green belt talk about
it as though the whole thing was some wonderful environmental
preserve, and the people who do want to build over it talk as
though it was all complete scrub and purposeless. Neither of
those things are true. Green belt is a planning designation, and
there are lots of places in which the green belt is quite
important. It should be used up rather thoughtfully, but I find it
hard, particularly—
Chair: I am sorry. Can I just interpret that? You used the phrase
“rather thoughtfully”. You mean that it should be built on, but
thoughtfully.
Dame Kate Barker: You should ask yourself about each piece of
green belt, whether the planning purpose that caused it to be put
in is as true today as it was originally. The sentence I disliked most
in the original green belt policy, which was called PPG2, explained
that the key characteristic of the green belt was its
257
CM 9720, 29 October 2018
258
HC Deb 5 November 2018 c1216
259
Para 145 of the NPPF. Background information on green belt policy can be found in
Library Briefing Paper 0934: Green Belt
260
Natural England and CPRE, Green Belts: A greener future, 2010, p90
“permanence”. That is quite an odd thing to say about a piece of

land that is a planning designation.
If we are going to use the green belt, however, particularly
around London, I would prefer for us to take very strategic
views. You have to build quite a significant place, a place big
enough to have a proper transport link. I find the lack of solution
for London overspill around London very difficult. Commuting
into London gets harder and harder all the time; I say this with
feeling.
If we are going to build around London, my preference would be
to do something that was less piecemeal and more strategic,
linked to either the transport links we are already thinking about
putting in—Crossrail is an obvious one—or where we are thinking
of having some new transport links altogether. I am sort of
reluctant to see further building around that is not really going to
help resolve some of the problems. Transport linkages are a real
issue. 261
Witnesses to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee’s inquiry expressed
divergent views. Martin Wolf, chief economics correspondent at the
Financial Times said that building on the green belt was “probably not
the whole solution” but noted that a lot of protected fields are “not
particularly beautiful” and that building on them could form part of the
solution. 262 Trudi Elliot of the Royal Town Planning Institute said that
green belt land served “a very important purpose” and building on it “is
a complex issue that is not really helped by some of the simplistic
debate we have about it.” 263
Shelter and KPMG point out that the value of land mainly depends on
what it can be used for. In this context, the planning system drives the
motivations of key participants in the development process:
…restrictions on land use reduce the supply of land at the right
price in the right places. for example, green belt designation in
the south east restricts development around London and forces
expansion beyond the green belt with people commuting across it
in huge numbers. 264
Paul Cheshire, Professor Emeritus of Economic Geography, LSE, has
argued that building on the least attractive and lowest amenity
parts of green belts could solve housing supply and affordability
problems. 265 His evidence to the Lords Economic Affairs inquiry stated
that it is ‘imperative’ for land supply decisions and demand to
“systematically respond to price information since this is the signal
allowing our economy to provide enough of any good or service: with
the single exception of land for development.” 266 He set out a method
for achieving this outcome:
261
262
263
Ibid., para 150
264
government, p35
265
“Greenbelt myth is the driving force behind housing crisis” The Conversation, 13
September 2013
266
Homes, HL Paper 20, 15 July 2016, [written evidence EHM0156]
…the price differential between land in any use and its alternative
proposed use, if it exceeds some threshold, should constitute a
‘material consideration’. There would then be a presumption that
the alternative development would be permitted unless (and this
is an important ‘unless’) it can be demonstrated that the
environmental or amenity benefits generated by keeping the land
in its existing use were of sufficient value to society to refuse the
proposed development. It would be necessary to decide on an
appropriate ‘threshold’ level for price differentials not to trigger a
potential presumption of development. If the threshold was set at,
say, £1 million, this would represent a significant hurdle to
changes of use since the costs associated with such changes
would not normally be as much. One can envisage, for example,
agricultural land on the urban fringe or land zoned for industrial
use in places where there is an undersupply of housing, so
housing land prices exceed agricultural or industrial land prices by
£1m or more. In neither case is it likely that basic infrastructure
investment to make the land suitable for development in the new
use would exceed £1m per Ha. So, if one was envisaging
developing agricultural land on the urban fringe, a threshold of
£1m could be viewed as the equivalent of a tax on Greenfield
development, reducing the total urban land take. 267
There are calls on all sides for green belt principles to be re-evaluated in
a 21st century context. The Royal Town Planning Institute, in a
November 2016 policy statement called for the purpose of green belts
to be revisited:
But it is important to revisit the purposes that green belts need to
fulfil over the coming generation. The value of green belts is not
simply about what is ugly and what is attractive, as some argue.
We need to talk about who green belts are for, and about their
social impact, along with their continued role in shaping and
managing urban growth.
Green belt boundaries may well need to change, but only through
careful reviews over wider areas than single local authorities, and
where safeguards are put in place to ensure that development is
sustainable, affordable and delivered in a timely manner, and
without prejudice to the renewal of brownfield land. 268
Following consultation on proposed amendments to the green belt
The revised NPPF
provisions in the NPPF, set out in the Housing White Paper, the published on 24
Government announced on 5 March 2018: July 2018 contains
In the revised Framework we are proposing to make clear the changes to
criteria that must be satisfied before the release of Green Belt land guidance on the
may, in exceptional circumstances, be justified. We are proposing green belt (chapter
to state that, as well as optimising density and co-operating with 13).
neighbouring authorities, local authorities should give priority to
suitable brownfield and land well-served by public transport.
We are proposing to create an expectation that loss of land from
Green Belt should be off-set by means of compensatory
improvements to environmental quality and access on remaining
Green Belt land. We are proposing to make it explicit that rural
exception sites can be created in Green Belt, and that
development under neighbourhood development orders and
267
Ibid., [written evidence EHM0156]
268
RTPI, Where should we build new homes? November 2016
changes of land-use for outdoor sport and recreation or provision

of burial grounds is ‘not inappropriate’ in Green Belt if it preserves
its openness and would not conflict with its purposes. 269
3.5 Support for SME developers

Most of England’s new housing is built by a small number of large firms.
By 2012, 70% of homes in England were built by large firms operating
on similar business models. 270 This concentration of market power is felt
to inhibit competition and can exacerbate the impact of market shocks
when all the large firms simultaneously reduce output. Section 3.2 of
this paper considers the barriers that smaller and medium sized
enterprises (SME) face in trying to compete for land.
Housebuilding requires considerable up-front investment, meaning that
in most cases, new housing developers need access to finance. In
common with the rest of the economy, finance was less readily available
in the construction sector after the financial crisis, although this
situation has improved. 271
For the housebuilding industry, a particular concern is access to finance
for SME developers. The Aldermore Group, a bank specialising in
finance to small businesses, have stated:
…smaller developers continue to struggle with access to finance,
with a recent industry survey showing that more than 50,000
construction and real estate firms have begun the year in
‘significant’ financial distress…unless more is done by lenders to
increase funding to smaller regional developers, the potential for
the industry to reach… [the Government’s house building
target]…will be less likely. 272
Problems accessing finance can have an impact on house builders’
ability to produce high quality housing, as well as on the overall capacity
of the house building industry. With reduced access to upfront
investment, house builders may choose to use cheaper, less skilled
269
broken housing market, 5 March 2018, pp23-25
270
government, p9
271
BBA, High street bank lending, July 2016
272
Mortgages for business, Smaller property developers struggling to access finance, 18
January 2016
construction workers or lower quality materials. Both these strategies or

cost saving can have a direct impact on the quality of completed homes.
Budget 2014 included a commitment:
To support SME access to finance, the government will create a
£500 million Builders Finance Fund, which will provide loans to
developers to unlock 15,000 housing units stalled due to difficulty The Housing White
in accessing finance. 273 Paper said that the
Accelerated
In July 2015, the then Housing Minister announced that the Fund would Construction
be extended; Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 said that Programme would
the £1 billion Fund would be extended to 2020-21. 274 support
diversification in the
October 2016 saw the launch of a £3 billion Home Building Fund under
market “through
which builders, including SME builders, can obtain loan finance to assist partnering with
with development costs and infrastructure work. Autumn Budget 2017 small and medium-
announced a further £1.5 billion for this Fund “providing loans sized firms and
specifically targeted at supporting SMEs who cannot access the finance others as
they need to build.” 275 The 2017 Budget also said: “The government development
will explore options with industry to create £8 billion worth of new partners and
guarantees to support housebuilding, including SMEs and purpose built contractors. There
rented housing.” 276 was also a
commitment to
In Building the homes we need: a programme for the 2015 government continue to work
Shelter and KPMG recommended the provision of government with the British
guarantees for bank lending: Business Bank to
encourage
This would work through a guarantor bank, which would
guarantee certain tranches of the loans to SME builders, investment in SMEs.
conditional on the funding being used to develop homes. The (para 3.9)
loan guarantees would be made by government, but this doesn’t
mean that government would take all of the risk. Risk sharing
arrangements would be put in place, to reduce the government’s
risk and ensure that the guarantor bank remains incentivised to
lend to those firms most likely to succeed. 277
This proposal was described as a ‘mirror’ of the Help to Buy: Mortgage
Guarantee scheme (now closed). KPMG and Shelter argued that the
biggest impact of such as scheme would be to improve the percentage
of loan to value (LVT) that SMEs could achieve. Capital Economics
estimated that reducing SME builders’ funding costs and restoring their
credit allocation to pre-2007 ratios would support the development of
an extra 3,000 homes per year. 278
SME developers are less able to withstand market shocks. This is
illustrated by the fact that their share of total housing starts declined
after each of the last two house price crashes. A factor that would
reduce risk and improve confidence in the development process is house
price stability. Shelter and KPMG called for the launch of a review led
273
HC 1104, Budget 2014, March 2014, para 1.141
274
Cm 9162, November 2015, p41
275
276
Ibid., para 5.22
277
government, p64
278
Capital Economics, Increasing investment in affordable homes, 2014, section 6.4
by the Bank of England “on the impact of house price volatility on

the economy and the policies that would be required to stabilise prices
relative to incomes over the long term.” 279 They also called for a
review of property taxation to consider “potential extra revenue for
the affordable house building programme but also in the context of
economic and housing market stability.” 280
When giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on housing
policy, Dame Kate Barker was asked what key housing measure she
would introduce if given the opportunity, she said:
Dame Kate Barker: I fear that I would be Chancellor of the
Exchequer for a very short time, because I would probably wish to
put capital gains tax on your first property.
Chair: So it is the absence of a tax on imputed rent, for which
most people consider the gains relief as a rough and ready
substitute, that most concerns you. This is the abolition of
schedule A.
Dame Kate Barker: Yes, it is. 281
The Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee considered changes to the
taxation system and, while supporting amendments to Council Tax, the
Committee concluded that “it is wrong to create specific tax rules, as is
the case with recent changes to capital gains tax and inheritance tax,
around housing.” 282
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) published an analysis of the
position of SME builders and possible measures to tackle the issue:
Reversing the decline of small housebuilders: Reinvigorating
entrepreneurialism and building more homes (2017).
3.6 The construction industry

For any package of solutions to deliver a step-change in housing supply,
the construction industry must have capacity to be able to deliver.
Several issues have been identified within the industry which require
strategic intervention to address them.
Labour market and skills
A 2015 report from Arcadis, a built-environment design consultancy,
identified significant problems in attracting and retaining sufficient
trained recruits in the construction industry: 283
• Arcadis argued that if the government’s target for building new
houses was to be met, then the industry would need to recruit
224,000 new people by 2019.
279
government, p67
280
Ibid.
281
HC 861, 7 December 2016, Q50
282
283
Arcadis, People and money: fundamental to unlocking the housing crisis, 2015, pp4-
7
• The fact that the number of people joining the sector has
been declining for some years led Arcadis to argue that there is
a weak “pipeline of talent” into the house building sector.
• Arcadis found that many construction workers are retiring early,
meaning that around 700,000 new recruits would be required just
to replace the current (2015) workforce by 2019.
• Another issue is a lack of relevant skills needed to build
houses among existing construction workers. Arcadis reports
that the following trades or professions are constraining house
building due to under-supply of labour: bricklayers, plasterers,
architects and quantity surveyors.
• Training or re-training existing workers is more difficult in
the construction sector compared with other sectors due to above
average rates of self-employment and “the fragmentation of the
supply chain”. These factors make organising widespread training
difficult. 284
• Arcadis report that a large number of construction workers are
operating in different sectors. But there is also evidence that
people with relevant skills are operating in shrinking sectors (such
as manufacturing), suggesting a potential source of new labour
for the construction sector.
• The construction sector is “heavily reliant” on non-UK born
workers: around 12% of construction workers are non-UK born,
according to Inside Housing. 285 Construction and house building
trade associations have expressed concern that the UK’s new
relationship with the EU could adversely affect the supply of
migrant labour, which, combined with the other labour issues
mentioned above, could cause considerable “damage” to the
sector’s capacity. The Federation of Master Builders said:
…It is now the government’s responsibility to ensure that the The Housing White
free-flowing tap of migrant workers from Europe is not turned Paper said that the
off…
Government would
Innovation in construction support a joint
working group to
Innovation in construction methods and materials can mean more
ensure mortgages
homes being produced quickly, cost-effectively and to modern
are readily available
standards. Among other things, this can increase the life-span of for a range of
housing, improve energy efficiency and reduce the need for major tested methods of
repairs. construction.
The UK construction industry has been slow to adopt technological and (Para 3.40)
other innovations which are frequently used by house building
industries in other countries. 286
284
The Construction Index, Ministers tell industry leaders to sort out skills shortage, 1
February 2016
285
Inside Housing, Builders: immigration rules must protect construction workers, 1 July
2016
286
Innovate UK, Construction industry summit, blog post, 18 September 2015
These innovations include:

The Housing White
• Increased use of data and data management in the design and Paper said that the
planning of house building. This forms an important part of the Government would
Construction strategy 2016-20 (March 2016). consider how the
planning system
• Innovation in the way the workforce and businesses involved in operates to support
house building are organised might provide a way to standardise modern methods of
more house building, and so make the industry more efficient, construction (MMC)
according to Innovate UK. developments.
• Mass produced modular components are a feature of commercial (para 3.40)
building, but are less regularly used in house building in the UK.
These methods speed up the time required to build houses and
require less manpower. They also help to ensure standardised
levels of quality and durability.
Adopting modern construction methods can also lead to increased
productivity in the sector, meaning that fewer people are required to
build the same number of houses.
Between 1998 and 2015, labour productivity in the construction sector
grew by 0.4%. Productivity in the whole economy, despite stagnating
since 2007, increased by 22.7% over the same period. 287
The Government launched its Accelerated Construction prospectus on
The Housing White
3 January 2017: Paper said that the
Through our new Accelerated Construction programme, we now Accelerated
want to provide a tailored package of support to ambitious local Construction
authorities who would like to develop out surplus land holdings at Programme and
pace. The programme aims to deliver up to 15,000 homes Home Builders’
(housing starts) on central and local surplus public sector land in Fund would create
this Parliament through £1.7 billion of investment. In doing so, we
new opportunities
want to use Accelerated Construction to tackle broader
constraints to seeing more homes built. The programme is
for the use of
designed to support our market diversification objectives by modern methods of
supporting non-major builders and help tackle the construction construction.
skills gap, including through greater use of Modern Methods of (para 3.40)
Construction (MMC). 288
During a speech to the Northern Powerhouse Summit on 5 July 2018,
Business Secretary, Greg Clark, announced £420 million investment
in construction technology. The Government is contributing £170
million and industry is contributing £250 million to innovation in
construction techniques and materials. 289
The Farmer Review’s recommendations 2016
A combination of these issues led the 2015 Government to commission
research from the Construction Leadership Council into how the
industry’s skills and manpower problems might be overcome. The
Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model: ‘Modernise or
die’ was published in December 2016. The review concluded that the
construction industry and clients that rely on it are “at a critical
287
ONS, Labour productivity Oct-Dec 2015, figure 1, 7 April 2016
288
DCLG, Accelerated Construction: expressions of interest, 3 January 2017
289
The Planner, “£420 to be invested in smart construction”, 5 July 2017
juncture”. The following symptoms of failure and poor performance

were identified:
• Low productivity.
• Low predictability.
• Structural fragmentation.
• Leadership fragmentation.
• Low margins, adversarial pricing models and financial fragility.
• Dysfunctional training funding and delivery model.
• Workforce size and demographics.
• Lack of collaboration and improvement culture.
• Lack of RandD and investment in innovation.
• Poor industry image. 290
Amongst these, the review identified the industry’s workforce size and
demographic as “the real ticking time bomb.” There is potential,
according to the review, for the workforce to decline by 20-25% within
a decade:
This scenario has never been faced by UK construction before and
would be a capacity shrinkage that would render the industry
incapable of delivering the levels of GDP historically seen. Just as
importantly, it would undermine the UK’s ability to deliver critical
social and physical infrastructure, homes and built assets required
by other industries to perform their core functions. 291
The review proposed the establishment of a tripartite covenant
“between the construction industry, its end clients (private and public)
and government” with the latter acting as a strategic initiator to pump
A review of CITB
prime change. 292 opened in February
The review’s ten headline recommendations are set out below: 2017 and closed in
March 2017. The
1 Construction Leadership Council (CLC) to have strategic oversight Government has
of the implementation of the review’s recommendations and decided that CITB
evolve to coordinate and drive the process of delivering the should be retained
industry change programme. but reformed. The
2 Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) to be comprehensively report of the review
reviewed and a reform programme instituted. 293 was published in
November 2017.
290
Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model: ‘Modernise or die’, December
2016, p7
291
Ibid., p8
292
Ibid., p10
293
Building Support: the review of the Industry Training Boards was published in
November 2017
3 Industry, clients and government to work together leveraging

CLC’s Business Models workstream activity, to improve
relationships and increase levels of investment in R&D and
innovation by changing commissioning trends from traditional to
pre-manufactured approaches.
4 Industry, clients and government, supported by academic A new route into
expertise and leveraging CLC’s Innovation workstream activity, to construction was
organise to deliver a comprehensive innovation programme. due to be launched
Programme to be aligned to the market and generate a new in September 2019
shape of demand across the industry with a priority on residential An apprenticeship
construction. levy has operated
since 6 April 2017.
5 A reformed CITB to look to reorganise its grant funding model for (Housing White
skills and training aligned to what a future modernised industry Paper para 2.33)
will need. Bodies to play a more active role in ensuring training
courses produce talent appropriate for a digitally enabled world.
6 A reformed CITB or stand-alone body should be challenged and
The Government
empowered to deliver a more powerful public facing story and
will work with the
image for the holistic ‘built environment’ process. To include an
CLC to challenge
outreach programme to schools and draw on existing industry
housebuilders and
exemplars and a vision for the industry’s future state.
companies to
7 Government to recognise the value of the construction sector as deliver more
part of its industrial strategy and be willing to intervene by way of training. (Housing
appropriate further education, planning and tax/employment White Paper para
policies to help establish and maintain appropriate skills capacity. 2.33)
8 Government to provide an ‘initiation’ stimulus to innovation in the
housing sector by promoting the use of pre-manufactured
solutions through policy measures. To be prioritised either
through the conditional incentivisation of institutional
development and investment in the private rented sector; the
promotion of more pre-manufactured social housebuilding
through Registered Providers; direct commissioning of pre-
manufactured housing; or a combination of any of the above.
9 Government, as part of its housing policy planning, should work
with industry to assemble and publish a comprehensive pipeline of
demand in the new-build housing sector. This should be along
the same lines as the National Infrastructure Pipeline, seeking to
bring private developers and investors into this as far as possible
to assist with longer term innovation and skills investment
planning.
10 In the medium to longer-term, particularly if a voluntary approach
does not achieve the necessary step-change, government to
consider introducing a charge on business clients for the
construction industry to further influence commissioning
behaviour and to supplement funding for skills and innovation at
a level commensurate with the size of the industry. The charge
should be set at no more than 0.5% of construction value with a
clear implementation timetable. Clients would be able to avoid
payment by showing how they are contributing to industry
capacity building and modernisation. 294
294
Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model: ‘Modernise or die’, December
2016, p11
A schedule of responses to the review was published in 2016 while the

Government’s response was published in a letter of 19 July 2017:
Since its publication in October, we have been incorporating the
review’s findings and recommendations into policy development.
The attached annex sets out more fully how the Government has
responded to each of Mark’s recommendations. In particular,
Mark’s recommendations influenced the measures in the Housing
White Paper to support increased housing supply, and helped
inform the review of the Construction Industry Training Board
(CITB). 295
The Autumn Budget 2017 included the following announcement on
construction skills:
Construction skills – The government will support industry to
help ensure that there is a workforce fit to build these homes,
providing £34 million to scale up innovative training models across
the country, including a programme in the West Midlands. The
government is working with industry to finalise a Construction
Sector Deal that will support innovation and skills in the sector,
including £170 million of investment through the Industrial
Strategy Challenge Fund. Construction skills will also be a focus
for the National Retraining Scheme. 296
On 31 October 2018, the Government responded to a question on the
allocation of construction skills funding:
The CITB Construction Skills Funding is currently being agreed
with the successful Construction Training Hubs providers across
the country. We expect up to £9.2 million to be granted in
2018/19. A ministerial announcement about the successful
projects will be made later this year. 297
295
Government Response to the Farmer Review_19 July 2017
296
Autumn Budget 2017, November 2017, para 5.25
297
Training: Expenditure: Written question -184443, 31 October 2018
4. Housing White Paper:

additional proposals
The sections below cover key commitments in the White Paper which
are not referred to elsewhere in this paper.
4.1 A standard method for calculating

housing need
The Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 contains provisions to ensure
that all areas must be covered by a plan – new powers will enable
intervention to ensure that plans are put in place. The White Paper said
that the current approach to assessing housing requirements as part of
the planning process is “particularly complex and lacks transparency” –
the NPPF does not provide guidance on how housing need should be
calculated. 298 The Government proposed:
• a more standardised approach to the assessment of housing need
Savills has made the
which is “more realistic about current and future housing
point that assessed
pressures.” This assessment will take account of the needs of
need in England
specific groups, e.g. older people and the disabled. The proposed
using the new
methodology will be subject to consultation;
methodology
• councils will be incentivised to use the new approach; and should add up to at
least 300,000 new
• by April 2018 the new methodology for calculating objectively homes per year.
assessed need will apply as the baseline for assessing five-year
housing land supply and housing delivery. 299
Consultation on Planning for the right homes in the right places took
place between 14 September and 9 November 2017. The paper
included proposals on a standard method of calculating local
authorities’ housing need. A summary of responses and the
Government’s view on the way forward was published on 5 March
2018: Government response to the planning for the right homes in the
right places consultation. The Government published How is a minimum
annual local housing need figure calculated using the standard method?
alongside the revised NPPF in July 2018. In addition, the Government
said that consideration would be given to adjusting the methodology
after new household projections were released in September 2018. 300
On publication of the new household projections, the Government
noted that they would “lead to a significant reduction in the overall
numbers generated by the standard method for assessing local housing
need.” A Technical consultation on updates to national planning policy
and guidance, was published on 26 October 2018 – responses were
accepted up to 7 December 2018. The paper sets out the Government’s
reasons for deciding not to change its aspirations in terms of new
298
299
Ibid., paras 1.12-16
300
MHCLG, National Planning Guidance website, [accessed 8 August 2018]
housing supply. 301 Subject to the outcome of this consultation exercise,

there is an intention to publish updated planning guidance on housing
need assessment and a new version of the NPPF incorporating policy
clarifications. 302
The pressure of expectation placed on authorities with high demand
and low affordability was welcomed by some, including the NHF.
However, commentators raised the issue of local authorities in areas of
lower demand cutting their land supplies where new housing could
drive improvements in quality and regeneration. The fact that the figure
of assessed need does not break down into housing types has also been
raised. 303
4.2 A housing delivery test

A new test was proposed to “ensure local authorities and wider
interests are held accountable for their role in ensuring new homes are
delivered in their area.” 304 The test would be designed to show whether
the number of houses built is below target and provide a mechanism for
establishing why this is happening and, where necessary, trigger policy
responses to ensure more land comes forward:
The first assessment period will be for financial years April 2014 –
March 2015 to April 2016 – March 2017.
To transition to a housing delivery test we propose to use an
area’s local plan (or, where relevant, the figure in the London Plan
or a statutory Spatial Development Strategy) where it is up-to-date
(less than 5 years old) to establish the appropriate baseline for
assessing delivery. If there is no up-to-date plan we propose using
published household projections for the years leading up to, and
including, April 2017 - March 2018 and from the financial year
April 2018 - March 2019, subject to consultation, the new
standard methodology for assessing housing need.
In line with responses to our previous consultation, housing
delivery will be measured using the National Statistic for net
additional dwellings over a rolling three year average. Where
under-delivery is identified, the Government proposes a tiered
approach to addressing the situation that would be set out in
national policy and guidance, starting with an analysis of the
causes so that appropriate action can be taken:
• From November 2017, if delivery of housing falls below
95% of the authority’s annual housing requirement, we
propose that the local authority should publish an action
plan, setting out its understanding of the key reasons for
the situation and the actions that it and other parties need
to take to get home-building back on track.
85% of the housing requirement, authorities would in
addition be expected to plan for a 20% buffer on their five-
year land supply, if they have not already done so.
301
MHCLG, Technical consultation on updates to national planning policy and
guidance, 26 October 2018
302
Ibid., para 31
303
304

25% of the housing requirement, the presumption in
favour of sustainable development in the National Planning
Policy Framework would apply automatically (by virtue of
relevant planning policies being deemed out of date),
which places additional emphasis on the need for planning
permission to be granted unless there are strong reasons
not to.
• From November 2019, if delivery falls below 45% the
presumption would apply.
• From November 2020, if delivery falls below 65% the
presumption would apply.
The phased introduction of the housing delivery test
consequences will give authorities time to address under delivery
in their areas, taking account of issues identified in their action
plans and using the 20% buffer to bring forward more land. 305
In response to feedback on the test, the Government said:
While acknowledging respondents’ concerns that housing delivery
is not wholly within the control of local authorities, the
Government believes that, as part of the wider changes to
planning policy, the Housing Delivery Test has a significant role to
play in helping to deliver authorities’ housing commitments. The
Government welcomes the general support for these specific
recommendations, and proposes to reflect them in the revised
Framework and guidance
Concern that a plan’s annual requirement does not take
fluctuations into account has been recognised. Where
appropriate, stepped trajectories and requirements will be taken
account of in the baseline. Steps will also be taken to prevent
penalising ambitious authorities. The Government acknowledges
the concerns raised about using household projections and new
standard methodology for Local Housing Need as the baseline in
the absence of an up to date plan. However, this will not apply
where local authorities have an up to date plan in place and the
Government expects authorities to move toward Local Housing
Need based plans as soon as possible. In assessing delivery, the
Government will also ensure that the delivery of communal
accommodation is also included in the Housing Delivery Test
calculation. 306
The Housing Delivery Test measurement rule book was published on
24 July 2018. The planning consequences of not meeting the Housing
Delivery Test are set out in paragraphs 73-75 of the revised NPPF. On
3 December 2018, PlanningResource reported that MHCLG had failed
to publish the results of the housing delivery test to the November 2018
deadline.
4.3 Build to rent

The White Paper identified a need for more good quality privately
rented homes. The 2015 Government wanted to build on the work of
305
Ibid., paras 2.47-50
306
the Private Rented Sector Taskforce to attract “major institutional

investment in new large-scale housing which is purpose-built for market
rent.” 307 A separate consultation exercise was initiated, Planning and
affordable housing for Build to Rent - a consultation paper, the key
proposals of which were to:
• amend the NPPF so authorities know they should plan proactively
for Build to Rent developments where there is a need and to
make it easier for developers to offer private rented homes at
affordable rents instead of other forms of affordable housing; and
• ensure family friendly tenancies of three or more years are
available for tenants that want them on schemes benefiting from
changes introduced by the Government. 308
The outcome of this consultation was published in August 2017. 309 The
revised NPPF includes build-to-rent schemes in the definition of
affordable housing. 310
307
Cm 9352, Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017, paras 3.20-21
308
Ibid., para 3.23
309
MHCLG, Planning and affordable housing for build to rent: Summary of consultation
responses, August 2017
310
MHCLG, National Planning Policy Framework, 24 July 2018, Annex 2
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BRIEFING PAPER

Number 07671, 12 December 2018

Tackling the under-supply By Wendy Wilson

www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary

Cassie Barton Sections 1 and 2

1. How much new housing does

1.1 Defining housing need

1.2 Estimating housing need

Source: ONS, Household projections for England: 2016-based

• The ONS made different assumptions about the rate of new

government is seeking, in the longer term, to review the formula that

Years of undersupply have also left a backlog of housing need,

However, an article in the 2018 UK Housing Review Briefing Paper gives

1.3 Is new supply meeting housing need?

NET HOUSING SUPPLY, HOUSEHOLD GROWTH AND ESTIMATED

300 Range of estimated need

2. Trends in housing supply

GROWTH IN THE NUMBER OF DWELLINGS, 1951 to 2011

Wales 711 1,184 1,384 95% 17%

UK 14,118 23,588 27,452 94% 16%

2.2 Components of new housing supply

Which housebuilding series?

COMPARING HOUSING SUPPLY MEASURES

Net additional dwellings

New builds (annual

New builds (quarterly

Recent trends in England

The growth in change-of-use conversions is due to extensions to

COMPONENTS OF NET SUPPLY OF HOUSING

Net additional dwellings

Source: MHCLG, Live Table 120

Get housing supply data for your area

How does this compare with past trends?

2.3 Long-term trends in house building

House building by type of developer

HOUSE BUILDING BY TYPE OF DEVELOPER: ENGLAND AND WALES, 1923 TO 2017

Private enterprise Housing associations Local authorities

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

1943 Housing (Financial and Misc. Provisions) Act 1946, New

Housing Acts 1961 and

1978 Housing Rents and Subsidies Act

2008 2008: start of financial crisis

Housebuilding by local authorities has declined substantially across the

PROPORTION OF NEW HOMES BUILT BY SOCIAL HOUSING PROVIDERS

2.4 Profile of new builds in England

HOUSING STOCK PROFILE BY AGE

New dwellings Old dwellings

Dwelling type New dwellings 87

2.5 Expenditure on housing

SPENDING ON HOUSING & COMMUNITY AMENITIES AND HOUSING

15 Housing & community

Source: HM Treasury, PESA 2018, Tables 4.3 and 5.2

The table overleaf shows regional expenditure on housing and

IDENTIFIABLE EXPENDITURE ON HOUSING & COMMUNITY AMENITIES

Total (£ million) £ per head

England £7,206 £130

Comparison with Housing Benefit expenditure

After 2010-11, decreased spending on housing and community

RATIO OF HOUSING BENEFIT SPENDING (GB) TO OTHER HOUSING