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Sir Keir Starmer’s government will need to increase the number of planning permits given in England each year by more than half to hit its home construction objectives, according to data that highlights the degree of challenge.
The number of houses granted planning permit in England last year dropped to the lowest level since 2014, figures from the Glenigan data provider show. This will have to increase by 53 percent to reach the 370,000 planning permit target that the work set under its national planning policy at the end of last year.
“The latest planning figures show that the supply of housing in short and middle terms is at critical levels of the crisis,” said Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the Federation of Home Federation Industry, who publishes data.
Starmer’s administration has increased the construction of houses a major commitment since it was elected last July, promising 1.5 million new homes over five years.
Ministers have said that they should overestimate the number of planning permits given to achieve that level of supply – the highest in one generation – as not all houses given permits are finally built.
Work blames the planning of the changes made by the former Conservative Government, under the pressure of MPs against development, for the decline in building homes. The contraction in the activity also reflects the impact of higher interest rates.
Glenigan figures, which are also used in official statistics, indicate that 242,610 houses were granted permission in England in 2024, below 2 percent a year ago. But the data also shows permits obtained in the last quarter of the year.
Labor reforms in the planning system have been evaluated by the home building industry, but both HBF and the National Housing Federation have said that these measures will not only be sufficient to achieve the 1.5MN target.
Critics of commercial house builders, who offer most of the new UK houses, say these companies intentionally build more slowly than they could do to control supply and achieve higher sales prices.
The industry argues that buildings rates are limited by the buyer’s demand, and say the solution is for the government to help buyers with a similar credit scheme to help in the purchase, which took place from 2013 to 2023. Buyers of the first time have fought with affordability given the highest mortgage rates over the past two years.
Companies say local authorities are already responding to pressure from Westminster after planning reforms.
Graham Protero, the chief executive of MJ Gleeson, who has divisions of building houses and promoting land, said authorities are increasingly approving developments to maintain decision -making control, rather than facing complaints about their heads to the central government.
He said progressing in field planning “is more positive than you think. We’re seeing it.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “This government inherited a broken planning system.. We have already taken decisive steps to take shovel on land.”
