The approach to delivering housing growth
Location of housing delivery
Detail on the potential geographic distribution of new housing is very limited across the manifestos. The headline targets are clear, but how they will filter through into local policy and local plans remains to be seen; the elected government will have to get to grips with this challenge very quickly.
The Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK all adopt a brownfield-first approach to housing delivery in their manifestos. Conservatives, Labour and Reform UK propose to do this with a ‘fast-track’ route through the planning system for new homes on previously developed land, albeit the parties stop short of providing details of what this will mean in practice.
While such a ‘fast-track' approach would help prioritise the use of brownfield land, and build upon existing policy support for such development, the detail of how these would be structured is still unclear. The existing – well-established – NPPF presumption in favour of sustainable development has already been the subject of consultation for strengthening by the Conservative government. This would be a clear opportunity for the new administration to shift the balance in favour of such sites.
While brownfield sites have obvious benefits in being able to turn liabilities into assets, regenerating our urban centres and being sustainably located with existing infrastructure, it also faces significant challenges
[13]:
- Previous Lichfields research[14] has established that, although there is enough brownfield land to build c.1.4m additional homes, it cannot all be built right now. Some of it is occupied by businesses on long leases, in other places it has been concluded that development is not realistic, and in others it will take decades to develop when steps such as land assembly and new infrastructure delivery are accounted for.
- Furthermore, there is not enough brownfield land to meet identified housing needs. If every plot of brownfield land identified in brownfield land registers was developed, it would secure less than a third of the 4.5m homes for which local plans must provide over the next 15 years; no region has a surplus. In the north of England, the brownfield register capacity equates to just 44% of the homes needed and in London, the South and Midlands, it is less than a quarter.
Notably, the Labour manifesto is the only one to explicitly recognise that ‘brownfield development alone will not be enough to meet our housing need.’
- Brownfield developments often face viability challenges as a result of the presence of abnormal costs associated with demolition, decontamination and site preparation works. This can result in these sites being able to support a lower level of affordable housing delivery.
- Such viability challenges can also necessitate proactive delivery support from the public sector for the biggest and most complicated projects. Such support might relate to the creation of a vision; direct provision of infrastructure (such as new rail stations); acquisition of land as part of a land assembly process; provision of financial incentives; or expediting planning decisions.
In response to this viability challenge, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK each propose the provision of financial incentives to encourage brownfield land development. Reform UK propose to achieve this aim through tax incentives, whilst the Liberal Democrats have not offered any detail on the form of their financial incentives. Neither party provides details of what the financial incentives could be used for, how much money will be made available or where the money will come from.
- Importantly, brownfield land is often best suited to higher density schemes; 48% of the homes envisaged on brownfield registers sites are flatted development (built at over 100 homes per hectare) whereas just 17% of households are likely to live in apartments. This can mean not providing for family homes which are valued by those with or wanting children to upsize locally or to continue living in cities.
These points are crucial to recognising the challenge of achieving the identified levels of housing delivery through brownfield-only policy. They also demonstrate that – in practice – it will be necessary for our housing needs to be met through a mix of brownfield and greenfield land. This gives rise to the question of whether Green Belt land might be needed to accommodate future housing growth.
It is in this context that our graphic below summarises each party’s approach to development in the Green Belt.
Approaches to housing delivery
Building on the overarching principle of either brownfield-first (and only), or a combination of brownfield and greenfield sites, each party has given some indication of their proposed method of achieving their housing targets. The following table summarises the key themes from each party’s manifesto.
One of the key distinguishing approaches between the parties is in relation to the use of new towns/garden cities as a mechanism of delivering housing at a strategic scale. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats propose the delivery of housing through new towns.
New towns offer the opportunity to drive nationally significant projects, providing large numbers of new homes in the long term, with the added benefits of being comprehensively designed, with all of the necessary infrastructure, and the ability for higher proportions of affordable housing compared to the national average.
However, given the significant time taken to navigate the planning process and commence the delivery of such large-scale developments, they have a long lead-in time from their conception and approval. Lichfields’ research in 2024
[15] shows that sites of 1,000+ dwellings take on average five years to obtain detailed planning permission, then a further 1.3-1.6 years from first application validation to first dwelling completion. It would be necessary for developments of this scale to already be at an advanced stage in order to see any delivery in the next Parliament; but, if they are, they provide an effective opportunity to unlock housing in years 3-5 of Parliament, which will be key to delivering housing targets.
To speed up the delivery of housing sites, the Liberal Democrats propose ‘introducing ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ planning permission for developers who refuse to build’. The effectiveness of this mechanisms seems limited in that time restrictions on permissions already exist, and that there is not a particularly prevalent issue with developers refusing to build unless in regard to site constraints and other issues.
Reform UK propose the introduction of a ‘loose fit’ planning policy for large residential developments. It is unclear what such a policy would look like, and therefore it is hard to comment on its likely effectiveness.
Addressing issues of local planning authority resources
The financial and resource pressures facing local authorities, including their planning functions are well-established. Addressing such pressures will be key to boosting housing delivery. The current government has used a variety of mechanisms to seek to address this, most notably through the increase in planning application fees, although it stopped short of ring-fencing the extra revenue from those fees for planning departments.
Only Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Green Party address this issue specifically. Labour commit to support local authorities by funding additional planning officers, through increasing the rate of the stamp duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents, and target the appointment of 300 new planning officers. However, with more than 300 local authorities in England alone, more detail about how this additional resource will be utilised – be it geographically or in targeted locations – is needed before conclusions about their efficacy can be drawn.
The Liberal Democrats commit to “properly fund” local planning departments to improve planning outcomes, by allowing local authorities to set their own fees. While this suggests a reward for good performance, it could also imply sanctions where performance related outcomes are not achieved. The Green Party recognises that “local authorities need to be given the resources to act as guardians of the land and the built environment” but have not set out their approach to achieve this.
Balancing growth & environmental interests
While housing is well-established as a crisis of a humanitarian nature, the response to address this needs to be sensitively balanced against the need to protect our natural environment. With consideration to the climate and energy crises, all the parties have considered this issue to a degree.
Our interactive infographic
[16] summarises the key manifesto statements regarding the environment and energy policies. With the exception of Reform UK, each party has emphasised the need to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes. The Green Party, Liberal Democrats and Labour have all committed to building more sustainable homes, with the Green Party campaigning for them to be Passivhaus or equivalent, and the Liberal Democrats seeking to ensure all new homes are zero-carbon. While the Conservatives are also committed to tacking climate change, their commitments are more cautious, by looking to ensure that offset requirements for new homes are proportionate, without compromising environmental outcomes.
These commitments, together with other potential requirements such as the Liberal Democrat proposal to require all new development to achieve a significant biodiversity net gain of up to 100%, will all add further burdens to the delivery of housing.
Measures to support our response to climate change through new development are crucial, but in turn they will need to be supported through mechanisms that ensure overall delivery is not unduly hindered.
