Proposed NPPF changes not enough to meet 1.5m housebuilding target, says think tank

The government’s planned reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) will not be sufficient to meet its housebuilding targets, according to the Centre for Cities.

According to the think tank, Labour will fall short of its aim to build 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament in 2029 by at least 388,000 homes.

Centre for Cities predicts that, through changes to the NPPF, the government could raise private sector housebuilding to deliver a total of 1.12 million new homes over the period.

Its analysis was based on historical analysis of the last 80 years of housebuilding.

The think tank said it was unlikely that the shortfall could be bridged by the public sector within the next five years.

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“Rightly, the government has set a bold housebuilding target,” said Andrew Carter, chief executive of Centre for Cities.

“For the country to achieve it, parts of England would have to reach an 80-year high in housebuilding. 

“This would be a huge positive for the country but the approach has to be much more ambitious.”

In order to achieve this, Centre for Cities, which describes itself as ‘non-partisan’, said the government was faced with a choice between scrapping the green belt entirely or removing the discretionary element of planning with a switch to a zonal system.

The think tank made the case for the latter, supplemented with selected release of land in the green belt, with a focus on sites within walking distance of railway stations with connections to the UK’s most expensive cities.

It also advocated an expanded role for the public sector in assembling land and preparing brownfield for development and a substantial increase in grant-funded public housebuilding, particularly in cities.

Previous research by the organisation showed that UK housebuilding had underperformed relative to comparable European countries since 1947, when the current planning system was introduced, resulting in a “backlog” of 4.3 million missing homes.

Carter added: “By removing the discretionary element of the planning system, the UK would bring its planning system in line with most developed economies, remove a big block on housebuilding and enable places to better respond to future rises in demand for homes.

“We have done wholesale planning reform before and we can do it again.

“What we can’t do is raise national economic growth – and reduce the strain high housing costs place on people’s spending power – if we don’t address the backlog of missing homes.”