Housing delivery, planning reform and increasing supply were all high on the agenda, as they should be. Much of what was discussed was sensible and well intentioned. Yet after more than twenty years in the sector, I found myself reflecting on a simple question: why are we still having many of the same conversations?
\nWe’ve had reviews, consultations, reforms, interventions and policy announcements from successive governments. We’ve had countless debates around housing need, planning reform and increasing supply. Despite broad agreement on the challenge itself, we remain some distance from delivering the number of homes the country requires.
\nWe talk about planning reforms, housing targets, consultations and policy measures, but ultimately there is only one measure that really matters: are more homes being delivered?
\nIf housing delivery remains broadly where it is despite years of reform, consultation and intervention, then it is fair to ask whether we are spending too much time discussing solutions and not enough time measuring whether they actually work.
\nThe need for around 300,000 homes a year has been understood for decades. Successive governments have recognised the challenge, yet delivery continues to fall short. The question is no longer what the next intervention should be, but why decades of interventions have failed to materially improve delivery. At some point, we must ask whether we are still trying to solve the problem in the same ways and expecting a different outcome.
\nFrom what I see, this is increasingly not about ambition. Developers still want to build, viable schemes continue to attract funding and investment activity continues. The bigger issue is confidence in delivery.
\nDevelopers have always adapted to changing conditions. Over the years that has meant navigating recessions, rising costs, shifting demand and changing economic cycles. What becomes harder is committing capital when the assumptions underpinning a scheme become increasingly difficult to rely upon. The challenge is no longer simply whether a scheme is viable today, but whether the assumptions made when a site is acquired will still hold by the time a developer is ready to build.
\nHigher build costs, longer delivery timescales and increasing complexity have narrowed the margin for error considerably. Developers are becoming more selective about where they deploy capital because the concern is no longer simply delay, but whether assumptions made at the beginning of a process will still apply by the end. That uncertainty changes behaviour long before construction begins.
\nOnce confidence in the likely outcome starts to weaken, projects take longer to commit to, sites become more selective and developers become far more cautious about where capital is deployed.
\nWe spend a lot of time talking about planning delays, but predictability is becoming the bigger challenge. Developers can usually work around delays. What becomes harder is planning around inconsistency.
\nHomes are delivered locally and trust in the planning process matters. One of the striking themes at UKREiiF was how often developers described very different experiences between neighbouring authorities despite dealing with similar schemes. In some cases, the inconsistency existed within the same authority, with different planning officers taking different views of the same local policies and requirements. Developers can cope with difficult conditions. What becomes much harder is making long-term decisions when interpretations, personnel and expectations change as applications move through the system.
\nThis is why the conversation cannot simply be about planning resource. Again and again, developers point to the same practical issues: delays in registering applications, turnover among planning officers and changing interpretations of the same policies. Capability, continuity and consistency matter just as much. Developers need confidence that applications will be assessed by experienced people and that decisions will be grounded in a clear understanding of what successful delivery requires.
\nThe same challenge extends beyond planning. The industry is regularly asked to absorb additional cost and complexity in pursuit of wider policy objectives. Whether it is planning requirements, environmental obligations or wider regulatory change, most measures are understandable in isolation and many are introduced with positive intentions. The challenge is that developers experience them collectively rather than individually.
\nEach additional requirement may appear manageable on its own. Taken together, they change appraisals, reduce flexibility and narrow the margin for error that many SME developers rely on when bringing sites forward.
\nIf housing delivery is going to improve meaningfully, SME developers will need to play a central role. Much of the discussion around increasing supply comes back to smaller builders because they often bring forward smaller sites, infill opportunities and local schemes that larger developers may never pursue. Yet they are also the businesses most exposed to uncertainty.
\nOur research ahead of UKREiiF found that 76% of SME developers identified the planning process as a barrier to development, making it by far the most commonly cited challenge. Many also expressed limited confidence about expanding delivery over the next twelve months. If the developers we most need to increase delivery are becoming less confident about bringing forward new schemes, we should not be surprised if housing output continues to fall short of expectations.
\nAfter more than twenty years of debating many of the same issues, I am not convinced the industry needs another conversation about housing delivery. It needs more housing delivery.
\nMost people involved in the sector already understand the challenges. The next test of housing policy should not be how many consultations are launched, reforms announced or targets set. It should be whether more homes are actually delivered.
\nDevelopers still want to build and funding remains available for viable schemes. The bigger question is whether developers have sufficient confidence in delivery to commit capital at the scale required.
\nAt some point, we have to stop asking whether we understand the problem and start asking why the outcome is not changing. More importantly, we need to start demanding evidence that the solutions are working.
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Neil Leitch, Managing Director, Development Finance
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