The government recently announced serious failings in its 2015-20 Public Land for Housing programme, which aims to release public sector land for 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020
The failure of this programme raises serious questions over the feasibility of the Government’s housing programme ambition to deliver 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s.
To date, enough land for approximately 38,000 new homes has been sold, which is expected to increase to 65,000 homes (41% of the target) by March next year. This is a welcome addition to supply, and whilst it was always an ambitious programme, its failure to deliver brings into sharp focus the realities of bringing housing land to the market.
Kit Malthouse, the Housing Minister, commented: “Departments have agreed immediate actions to identify more land to bring into the programme and to accelerate disposals where possible to improve performance.” Clearly, identifying more land will enhance the prospect of success, but this would disguise more fundamental issues with the promotion of housing land that needs to be addressed.
The failings of the programme are put down to issues such as planning delays, land contamination and disposal for other uses. These and many others are common problems for those tasked with bringing housing land to the market. The promotion of housing sites from the first inception to delivery is a protracted process, fraught with difficulties and uncertainty. This is not assisted by the often-glacial progress of local plans, or the difficulties in negotiating the planning application process, both of which are the domain of chronically under-funded and under-resourced planning departments.
If the Government is to meet its target for this programme it cannot be simply about throwing more land at the problem. It must consider what is stalling site delivery at both the micro and macro scale. Fundamentally, there must be a properly funded planning system that provides greater certainty for all. A good first step would be an additional resource to ensure development plans are up to date, built upon credible viability assumptions and responsive to new opportunities.
Currently, the opportunity to promote sites through development plans is all too infrequent and often hampered by unrealistic policy requirements. This constrains supply, creates unrealistic expectations and ultimately undermines the development plan process.
Given this context, the failure of the 2015-20 Public Land for Housing programme is unsurprising and serves as a reminder to Government, if one were needed, that it still has fundamental issues to resolve if it is to fix the housing market.
Matthew Good
Director
