The Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey’s upcoming budget at the end of this month is going to be a balancing act. He wants to boost investor confidence without announcing too many scary tax rises which so many of us fear.
So here is a suggestion. All but the die-hard fanatics know that the way to solve the housing crisis, the economic growth inertia and re-fire prosperity is to bring back hope, ie boost sentiment. Put differently it is to commit Labour on 28 October to introduce a new building policy for new homes, infrastructure and jobs by the election in 2029. Uniquely the policy will recognise and say it can only be delivered with a spatial plan that is mandated by an election win in 2029.
That spatial plan announced in the budget will commit the government to publishing by the 2029 general election a spatial plan saying where in England 4+ million new homes will be built, with the jobs and infrastructure, within a generation and in any event by 2060. The new spatial policy will also commit to mandating all local authorities during the following parliamentary term, to becoming the owners of least (this is a guess: two thirds) of all rural and urban building land needed to deliver this policy the end of the next parliamentary term or 2034. The remaining one third will mostly be supplied through the existing local plan identified building sites.
All the official building land will be purchased by the local councils at the full open market value, including all hope value, prevailing at 10am on the day of the budget announcement, plus an additional 10% paid over and above market value to compensate all owners because they will be forced sellers.
A new spatial policy announcement on these lines will have dramatic consequences. Because locally and by 2029 all councils will have to identify the land they need to buy by 2060 to build their share of 4+ million new homes/jobs/infrastructure. Existing land owners will have choices to make about either bringing forward their own land for building in the short term; accept that it will be CPO’d at current or future current use (ie. the use on announcement day/28 October 2026) open market value; or agree it will become part of the official long term land supply.
Builders, developers and the building materials industry will have to start planning for a new building boom starting for certain in 2029 provided Labour win that general election. The massive planning support industry will face an initial three year bonanza of advisory work which will then gear up into a new, long term delivery phase after 2029 lasting towards 2060 if they are shrewd. Existing housing land owners too will face decisions after 2029. To fast track their lnd for development or wait for a long term policy reversal. If there is a Westminster consensus supporting the long term spatial plan, most will fast track their exit plans despite current low house prices. This is the outcome those who want to buy but cannot afford will welcome.
Initially the Conservatives, and perhaps Reform UK will both be tempted to mount campaigns built around accusations of nationalisation and funded by existing holders of building land, until they see how much long term investors and employers like the new long sighted thinking.
The Greens will be entitled to be concerned, thinking about the awfully low standard of housing build in the last thirty years. They, and their local nimby allies will also be tempted to oppose land use change on the scale proposed by the budget’s new spatial policy. But the possibility of affordable homes for their young supporters in ten or twenty years time, a first in a generation, will go far to reducing their opposition.
A new spatial policy leading a domestic policy revival tied to a foreign policy commitment to re-join the European Union by 2060 too would, I suspect transform the electorate’s current negative sentiments.
Those who say we cannot afford to introduce a long term spatial policy forget the amount of development value that is added to the lands current use value when business and popular sentiment is in the up. Land value gyrates through a wide band of values depending upon the creativity of the developer and foresight of the planning authority. We already know buyers like buying homes in Poundland and they will pay premiums to do so. What we do not know is how much the value of the Crown Estate’s land goes up by, if the end product is appealing enough. I never found funding was the reason for clients not to build. The money is always there if the product is appealing enough and priced correctly.
Ian Campbell
3 October 2026
