And are not the solution. To England’s broken housing supply market. This is the reality. So it is desperately sad that Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State for Housing and Planning has just re-stated the government’s commitment to their retention. Today, (27 November 2025) he made a Statement about their future role which includes this quotation
”The plan-led approach is, and must remain , the cornerstone of our planning system. Local plans are the best way for communities to shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development their areas need. In the absence of an up-to-date plan, there is a high likelihood that development will come forward on a piecemeal and speculative basis, with reduced public engagement and fewer guarantees that it will make the most of an areas potential. It is for these reasons that the level of up-to-date plan coverage we inherited is so problematic.”
The public is disillusioned with planning. So they turn their back on it, hoping it-some silly idea to build some more houses in a silly location- will just go away. This is why the public are not engaged, except for the veteran activists who simply want to say no. We actually need to reverse this mind-set. Right now for example the debate should be about where to build homes in the period 2035-2065, for example.
Please remember the choices about where to build in local plans are NOT selected led by local councillors. The locations are selected by local landowners. The lunacy in the local plan system is simple. Councillors have one spatial agenda. Local landowners have another spatial agenda. . Do you expect them to be the same. Of course not. The agenda a typically trader developer has with the land owner is seeking to maximise profit as fast as possible. All very legitimate too. And the other agenda belongs to local councillors, with a duty towards their community today and in the future. The scope for overlap in two agenda are vanishingly small. Which is why no-one trusts planning or planners.This became obvious a generation ago!
The call for sites system is the cornerstone of the local plan system. It is a rotten system built of naivety at best and subtle gaming of a corrupt system at worst. Over several decades it has failed to deliver the right homes, in the right place, at the right time, badly. A new cornerstone will place the power and the responsibility for deciding where new at scale housing goes in the hands of the local council. As mentioned before, it means all councils must contribute to a register, or National Land Service, maintained by the MHCLG as their first step to taking back control of their local communities
Land placed in the NLS register will not form part of the short term housing land supply. It will be the foundation of each councils long term housing supply. Councils will become the landowners and will use their powers to decide timing,, location and type just like far-sighted landed estates have done for generations. This way they create popular places, premium values, and turn opponents of local change into willing hosts who see and want the dividends new building can deliver. The Treasury too will be happy. No need for funding from them. Investors seeing the prospect of long term , consistent spatial planning will jump on board.
Mr Pennycook, stop listening to the vested interests. Look one or two generations ahead. And re-write the role of local plans. In the meantime enjoy the surge of new projects that spring forward as vested interests waiting to exploit the next inflation boom suddenly realise the rules have fundamentally changed. Step one is to get your political opponents in Westminster on board. This may be easier than you think, as opposition parties see the risks of their own supporter’s drifting away because young people are locked out. Ask your children; ask your grandchildren; ask their friends. Their situation is far more dire than you seem to think. For the party able to become the leaders who break the log jam of blocked demand, there are a lot of wins,
Ian Campbell
27 November 2025 .
