Problem Register - #4 · Housing & Planning
Housing supply and the planning system
Priority Score
- Scale5/5
- Severity4/5
- Cost of inaction5/5
- Tractability4/5
- Deliverability3/5
- Cross-partisan viability3/5
- Time-criticality4/5
Seven dimensions, each scored 1-5 and summed to a total out of 35. It is a triage and communication tool to compare problems - not a measure of truth. How it is derived is set out in The Method.
The problem
England does not build enough homes, and has not for decades. The result is housing costs that consume a punishing share of income - particularly for younger and lower-income households - and a private rented sector absorbing people who in earlier generations would have owned or had social housing. The binding constraint is less the building industry than the planning system that governs where, and whether, building may happen.
The evidence
Net additional dwellings in England were about 208,600 in 2024/25, down from 221,410 the year before. The government's stated objective implies around 370,000 new homes a year in England (1.5m over the Parliament); independent trackers rate delivery against that target as off-track. Decades of under-supply have compounded: house prices and rents have risen far faster than incomes across most of the country.
Why the market fails
This is principally government-created distortion. A discretionary planning system gives existing residents and their representatives an effective veto over new housing, while the benefits of that housing accrue to people who do not yet live in the area and cannot vote on it - a structural bias against supply. It is also a coordination failure: infrastructure, land assembly and consent must align for development to happen, and no single private actor can deliver that alignment.
Why it has persisted
The politics are asymmetric. The costs of new housing - disruption, change - are concentrated on existing residents who vote in the affected area; the benefits are spread thinly across future residents who do not. Every government since the 2004 Barker Review has identified the problem, and reform repeatedly stalls on local opposition. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 is the latest attempt; whether it shifts the underlying incentive remains to be seen.
Who bears the cost
Younger generations priced out of ownership; lower-income renters; people in overcrowded or insecure housing; and the wider economy, as high housing costs in productive places stop people moving to where the best jobs are (linking to entry 8).
Policy direction - outline only
Proposed mechanism
A shift toward rules-based zoning for designated growth areas - consent by conforming to a published plan rather than case-by-case discretion; a strengthened mechanism for capturing land-value uplift and routing a visible share to the affected community and its infrastructure; and development corporations for large sites.
Must resolve
How community benefit is designed so it genuinely shifts local incentives; green-belt and environmental trade-offs; and build-out rates.
Main risks
Local political backlash; the building industry's capacity and incentive to build at volume; quality and placemaking sacrificed to raw numbers.