Housing gains
Think tank: Fabian Society
Author(s): Ben Cooper
November 3, 2026
This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society examines how developer contributions can be used more quickly and effectively.
Communities across England desperately need more homes to tackle the housing crisis. But delivering great places to live requires more than new homes alone. It also means investing in the infrastructure that communities need. Developer contributions are an important mechanism for achieving this. Through section 106 agreements and the community infrastructure levy, housebuilders provide hundreds of millions of pounds to councils and other public bodies to invest in new and improved infrastructure.
Too often, however, these contributions go unspent. They may be allocated to specific projects that never get off the ground, or left entirely unallocated by public bodies despite an urgent need for investment.
In this report, Ben Cooper examines how the current system works, identifying the causes and scale of unspent developer contributions. He then sets out a series of recommendations for reform, aimed at minimising the level of unspent contributions and maximising the delivery of the new homes and infrastructure we need
