Restarting housebuilding I: Planning reform and the private sector
Think tank: Centre for Cities
Author(s): Anthony Breach
December 3, 2024
This report from UK think tank Centre for Cities investigates whether the current planning system has seen private housebuilding reach rates high enough to meet the new national target.
Using newly available data on English housebuilding by local authority since 1946, digitised by Centre for Cities, this report investigates whether the current planning system has seen private housebuilding reach rates high enough to meet the new national target for 1.5 million homes in England by the end of the Parliament.
These historic trends show that even if the current planning system built at the rate of its strongest period (2001-2022 in London, 1954-1979 in the rest of England), it would still fall 388,000 homes short of delivering the Government’s 1.5 million target by 2029 – a shortfall that is unlikely to be bridged in full by public sector housebuilding within the next five years.
