The UK has failed to meet housing demand for at least two decades. Only 0.44 homes have been built for every additional person living in the UK in recent years, compared with 2.74 homes per person during the peak building period between 1964 and 1983. This long-term shortfall has contributed significantly to housing pressures across the country.
Local planning authorities should prioritise developments that demonstrate how they will directly address housing requirements, including the size, tenure and type of homes needed in their communities. Without this focus, developments risk delivering homes that remain empty or fail to support existing residents who are unable to find suitable housing in their area.
Build in services for communities
Planning policy should give greater weight to proposals that clearly demonstrate how infrastructure such as roads, schools, healthcare provision and public services will be delivered alongside new housing.
Concerns about pressure on local services often lead to resistance from communities when new housing is proposed. Ensuring that developments include adequate infrastructure from the outset would help address these concerns and improve support for housing delivery.
Greater clarity and consistency in planning policy
The revised framework should include more prescriptive guidance to ensure consistent interpretation by local authorities. The draft NPPF currently contains several areas that are open to interpretation, which could lead to inconsistent planning decisions across the country.
Providing clearer examples and guidance within the framework would help authorities apply policies consistently and avoid misunderstandings that may delay housing delivery.
Affordable and accessible homes
Propertymark supports proposals for a minimum baseline of 40% of new homes being designed so they can be made accessible, which would help meet the needs of an ageing population and residents with disabilities. We are also in favour of changes that would allow affordable housing contributions from small developments in designated rural areas, which could help increase the supply of social housing in rural communities where demand exists.
However, we do not agree that developers should be allowed to make cash payments instead of delivering affordable housing on-site for medium-sized developments. This could create incentives for local authorities to approve schemes that fail to deliver affordable homes and may disadvantage smaller developers who cannot compete financially with larger firms.
Improving planning for large developments
Requirements relating to large-scale residential or mixed-use developments remain unclear, and stronger guidance is needed to ensure developments provide adequate infrastructure and community amenities.
Where sites are divided among multiple developers, new requirements must be put in place to ensure they collaborate on meeting planning obligations when the site collectively meets the thresholds for a large-scale development.
Furthermore, the UK Government must review or remove proposals in the draft framework that could allow developers to reduce housing delivery commitments after receiving planning approval.
