Insights
Making a bad situation worse
The impact on housing supply of proposed changes to the NPPF
The proposed changes to the NPPF will have a significant impact on house building. The Government accompanied its launch of the consultation in December with the statement that:
“The government remains committed to delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s and many of the immediate changes focus on how we plan to deliver the homes our communities need. We know that the best way to secure more high-quality homes in the right places is through the adoption of local plans".
The Government contends that the proposals will support housebuilding because it will encourage local plans to be prepared. However, this analysis by Lichfields for the HBF and LPDF finds that the policy proposals on their own could suppress the rate of net additional homes to just 156k per annum. Even before one factors in issues like the economic downturn or water and nutrient neutrality barriers to house building, this would mean building around half of the Government’s assessment of minimum housing need and 77k less than recent rates of delivery.