Insight: Government missing the target on the desperate need for more homes

We all need somewhere to live.  But the challenges of putting a roof over everyone’s head in Britain have seldom been more acute.

Rising mortgage rates coupled with a more general cost-of-living crisis are part of the problem.  But many in the house-building sector convincingly argue that there is another major drag on their ability to meet demand for new homes – the Government’s failure to enforce house building targets and a planning process that in many areas is simply not fit for purpose.

Even developers who do all the right things, using communications professionals to engage with stakeholders and consult with all those who have an interest in the project, can be hit by delays. Costs escalate, contractors move on, and potential purchasers lose patience.

A change in the urgency with which government had appeared to be approaching the building of more homes is blamed by many for contributing significantly to the problem.  Without housing targets enforced by central government, some local authorities are failing to draw up Local Plans – the blueprints for new housing.  It is leaving thousands with a diminishing chance of ever having somewhere permanent to call home.

The news in July that Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove handed back to the Treasury almost £2 billion earmarked for affordable housing because he was unable to spend has been greeted with incredulity and anger.

The Labour Party’s assessment is that the government is “incompetent” on this issue.  Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to loosen the restrictions on building on the Green Belt and has promised to “back the builders, not the blockers.”

In reply the Conservatives tried to regain the initiative on housebuilding with Rishi Sunak reissuing his pledge to have a million homes built by the end of this parliament.  Currently he is falling some 300,000 plus short.  His solution is to concentrate on building in city centres and make it easier to convert shops into homes. 

Levelling up Secretary Michael Gove tried to put some meat on the bones of that plan with a speech in London on July 23, insisting the Government would "unequivocally, unapologetically and intensively” concentrate on building new homes “in the hearts of our cities".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said building denser cities would create more "walkable, liveable communities" that cut commuting times to work.

But for many developers this reassertion of what passes for a house-building strategy has come too late.  Its new focus on building in cities, speeding up the process for converting shops to homes and concentrating on brownfield rather than greenfield sites won’t be enough, critics say.

Many housebuilders were warning earlier in the summer of cuts to the number of new builds in the year ahead.  There is little sign so far that this latest attempt to change the mood on new homes will change their minds.

Barratt Homes has warned it will be delivering around 4,000 fewer homes next year, compared to this – roughly 20% of its overall output.  Taylor Wimpey, meanwhile, has warned that rising Bank of England interest rates have made homes less affordable as it reported a rise in buyers pulling out of deals.  It still completed more homes than expected in the first half of the year, however.

Ian Burns, chief executive of West Midlands builder Cameron Homes, which would normally expect to complete around 300 properties a year, says that figure will be down to just 220.  He told the BBC: “I’ve been involved in house building for 30 years and I can’t remember a more challenging time.”

Housebuilders acknowledge that the rising cost of borrowing, which is making it difficult for buyers to secure a loan, is one of the major drivers of the downturn in the provision of new homes.  But they say it is also being fuelled by the government’s reluctance to support building in the countryside. The government’s shift in focus to city homes has done little to change the perception that the government has gone soft on housing.

Ian Burns said: “Planning appears to be more political now and that has caused quite a bit of uncertainty over the so-called housing targets.  That in turn passes down to the local authority and their land plan-making process, so there’s a lot of indecision in planning at all levels and it is griding to a halt.

“We’re not getting the decisions we need to enable us to undertake the developments the country needs for its housing stock.”

There has often been a degree of conflict over building new homes. Successive governments have had to walk a tightrope between planning policies that guarantee the provision of land for development while protecting the environment and acknowledging concerns from home-owning voters, some of whom who would rather not have more new properties ‘spoiling the view’ or contributing to what they might see as overcrowding.

A Conservative government that has been in turmoil for months, following the resignation of Boris Johnson and the disaster of Liz Truss at No. 10, had seemed to be running scared of supporting the building of new homes.

A group of some 60 Tory rebels is credited with forcing a U-turn on the 300,000 homes-a-year target, which although technically still in place had been kicked into the long grass because of unpopularity with Tory voters in the south of England.

Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely was among the rebels.  He suggested to BBC Radio recently that the housing crisis had been exaggerated.  He said of the 300,000 a year ambition that it was a “slightly arbitrary target” adding that the number of homes built in the past five or six years was the “highest for a quarter of a century.”

But he admitted that there must be a better way of carrying out planning in Britain, reporting that there are currently a million outstanding planning applications awaiting a decision while blaming developers and planners for what he called “a lazy reliance on out-of-town, car dependent, low-density, bad-for-the-environment, green field estates.”

Mr Seely supports the government’s proposal for more new homes in towns and cities.  “We have some of the lowest density cities, not only in Europe, but in the world,” he said. “We have to find a way of building high quality, high density in our urban centres. We’ve got to do house-building in this country but it has got to be community-led, environment-led and it has to be levelling-up led.”

Lawyer and housing expert Chris Young is less impressed.  He wrote on LinkedIn: “Don’t get me wrong, regeneration is a good thing. But it won’t deliver 300,000 homes a year; it delivers very little family housing and very often it delivers no affordable housing.”

Few would deny we need more homes.  But some of the biggest and best opportunities lie in rural communities, many of which need an economic shot in the arm that new affordable housing can bring.

A number of land owners - with large sites and innovative plans for creating new garden communities that tick all the environmental and community-living boxes - are keen to start building.

They need the government to treat the housing shortfall for the crisis it undoubtedly is and for local authorities to step up and process the planning applications in a timely manner.

There is no reason that building new homes has to be a vote-loser, quite the contrary.  If developers and landowners engage early on with their communities, properly consult with stakeholders and highlight the benefits of what they will deliver, a majority will support them.

For more information on how KOR Communications can help in the planning process go to korpr.co.uk