This new report series from Centre for Cities, 'Restarting housebuilding,' builds on our 2023 report 'The housebuilding crisis' that found Britain had a backlog of 4.3 million homes missing from the national housing market. Using local-level data from the last 80 years, newly digitised by Centre for Cities, these three new reports focus on Private and Public housebuilding as well as Land Value Capture. Together they offer a comprehensive analysis of the planning reforms needed to meet the new government's housebuilding 1.5 million housebuilding target and deliver the acceleration of private and public housebuilding that the UK need.
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.
This report looks at the role public housebuilding has played in England over the last 80 years to inform the role it should play in the future. It is the second in Centre for Cities’ three-part Restarting Housebuilding series.
This report identifies possible locations for large-scale urban extensions, each with good access to one of 15 major cities by public transport.
The UK’s chronic housing shortage is one of the biggest economic and social challenges the country faces. The Government is aiming to build 1.5 million homes over the Parliament in England, but barely 200,000 were built in 2023-24.
England’s housing crisis is so severe as the planning system is especially restrictive. While other countries have rules-based zoning systems, England has a discretionary planning system where every decision is made case-by case. In most zoning systems proposals that follow the rule are accepted, while under discretion even projects that have been approved by planners can be rejected by councils.
The housing crisis varies substantially across the UK, with the worst shortages in the most economically successful cities and towns where employment opportunities draw in large numbers of people. These are caused by how our planning system disconnects the local supply of housing from local demand.
Centre for Cities' latest piece of work on housing delves deep into the history of the UK's housing crisis and finds that the UK has a backlog of 4.3 million missing homes.
Compared to other European countries, Britain has a backlog of millions of homes that are missing from the housing market. Building these homes is key to solving the nation's housing crisis.
Past experience suggests that the new towns policy can accelerate development in certain areas. Government should combine it with wider national reform to make the planning system more efficient.
Samuel Watling and Anthony Breach join Andrew Carter to unpack the findings of their latest report focusing on the history of UK housing.
Writing for Left Foot Forward, Anthony Breach says that delivering growth will require Labour to deliver planning reform and a housebuilding boom to finally solve the housing crisis.
Cities with the biggest housing shortages are primarily concentrated in the Greater South East of England such as London and Brighton. But some other prosperous cities like Edinburgh, Bristol, and York that have lots of high-paying jobs are also affected.
Many expensive cities, such as Oxford and Brighton, often build far less housing than cities with cheaper housing and lower demand, such as Wakefield and Telford. This is because the supply of houses has little connection to prices and therefore the cities with the most unaffordable housing.
There is huge variation around where in large cities and towns new homes are being built. The vast majority of development happens either in city centres or on the very edges of cities. Meanwhile, half of all suburban neighbourhoods build less than one home each year.
The UK doesn’t have a national housing crisis, but there is a housing crisis in our most unaffordable cities. Our work offers ideas on how national and local leaders can get homes built where demand is highest.
This report uses new data to examine which neighbourhoods within cities are building the most and the least new homes and explores what this means for policy making.
Releasing green belt around more than one thousand existing commuter stations would solve the UK housing crisis.
What's the relationship between urban economies and housing wealth in England and Wales?
Analyst Maurice Lange explores how the pandemic affected London's population. Was there a pandemic-induced escape to the country, and, if so, has there been a permanent shift away from the city? This briefing reviews the evidence.
Both housing outcomes and the wider economy suffer from housing shortages and a lack of change in the built environment.
Low housebuilding is linked to more expensive and worse quality housing, particularly in and near the most prosperous and expensive cities.
This reduces disposable incomes and prevents people from living and work in the places where they can secure the highest wages and most progression.
The planning system ‘freezes’ large parts of the built form of English cities, so public transport networks are less efficient than they could be. People are prevented from living in walking distance of the network in apartment buildings, reducing the size of local labour markets and the economy.
The planning systems of the UK cause this shortage of homes by making it difficult to build. They do so in two ways. First, they ban new homes in large parts of the country, especially near cities, with policies like the green belt. Second, the unpredictable, case-by-case design of the planning process also makes it risky to propose building even in places where new homes are not banned.
What changes are needed to get more housing built where it is needed?
Why the current planning system causes a housing shortage, and how a new planning system — with flexible zoning — will end it.
The UK’s urban housing stock is underwhelmingly low-rise, characterised by swathes of two-storey terraces and cookie-cutter semi-detached developments. Given the UK’s housing shortage, these...
Planning reform is a package of proposed changes that have the aim of increasing certainty for people applying for planning permission to build new homes and commercial buildings. The discretionary planning system is unusually restrictive and uncertain, and at the root of the housing crisis.
It is possible to distinguish between “small-r” planning reform within the existing planning system, and “Big-R” planning reform that would shift us from the discretionary planning system towards the international norm of a rules-based flexible zoning system.
Since the new Government was elected it has been pursuing a positive “small-r” planning reform agenda, with changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, new and higher targets, green belt release, and new towns.
Other small-r planning reforms the Government could pursue are the implementation of the National Development Management Policies alongside Option 3 of their consultation on planning committee reform. Together they are a significant step towards a rules-based system.
The Government will eventually still need to implement a flexible zoning system if it wants to end the housing crisis. Centre for Cities has previously set out a proposal for planning reform that would replace the current discretionary planning system with a new flexible zoning system. For more details see the Planning Reform FAQ.
The UK must concentrate homebuilding primarily in economically successful cities where demand is highest. The current planning system will not deliver homes at this scale or in the right places. Only a wholescale reform of housing policy will deliver the development needed.
We propose:
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This blog looks at how the Green Belt impacts the scale and location of housebuilding in England, as well as the potential opportunities for reform, using data from our ‘Restarting Housebuilding’ research series.
Funding social and other type of ‘affordable’ housebuilding through private-sector cross-subsidy has its place, but a ‘generational increase’ cannot be achieved without more direct public investment.
Centre for Cities have published local-level housebuilding data back to 1945. This blog explains how we got the data and how you can access it on our GitHub page.
The purpose of this tool is to show the scale and nature of the variation in the economic performance of cities and towns across the UK by highlighting the performance of the 63 largest urban areas on 17 indicators.
1.3 million houses were demolished in England between 1956 and 1979. Demolition programmes were key components of efforts to improve housing quality during this period.
With the green belt in the news, this blog covers the key information everyone needs to know. What counts as the green belt and what doesn’t? Where is the green belt? And what do recent Government changes mean?
Chief Executive Andrew Carter is joined by Ant Breach, Associate Director and Maurice Lange, Analyst to discuss the findings of our new report series ‘Restarting housebuilding’ that looks at...
The UK has a shortfall of 4.3 million houses compared to other Western European countries. This housing shortage has reduced affordability, growth, and living standards. The Government...
A parliamentary reception to mark the launch of Centre for Cities' new Restarting housebuilding report series.
This report identifies possible locations for large-scale urban extensions, each with good access to one of 15 major cities by public transport.