Two articles explaining the reasons for housing supply failure and the solution are helpful. . By two well regarded experts each illustrates why there is a housing policy problem. Both make good points, but neither article nails why English housing policy since the 1970’s has failed. All the same both are welcome examples of the top calibre analysis the topic now attracts (full marks to the new Labour government for this achievement). Why my criticisms? Because there are two hurdles standing in the way of delivery. . Both are comprehensively overlooked by all concerned, even by these two thoughtful articles.
The first hurdle is intuitively understanding what makes so many objectors object to house building, and do so with such passion (which is sincere) and blindness (which is ignorance)? Please also remember both the house buying market (buyers of new homes) and the building land selling (owners of land and legal property interests) markets are in reality intuitive (not always rational) markets actors. . What this means is that both markets in their movements do not respond to the truth in predictable ways. Instead they respond to their perceptions, or their beliefs about of the truth. The two concepts are not identical. This matters. Due to unusually longer timeframes than most markets, and the large sums of money involved it is common for reality and beliefs about the future to diverge. Policy makers assume rational behaviour. It is a naive assumption applied to home buyers, land sellers, and local residents fearing local change.
The second hurdle, and it is linked to the first, is that to deliver lots of new homes where demand is most acute, it will be necessary to introduce a strong, high profile and long lasting communication campaign to explain why change us needed. . By which I mean at local level honest, not phoney political communication with the audience ie. the general public in host locations which succinctly explains why the changes proposed will bring good news to them and their community. . Without understanding the vital role communication will play in convincing local residents that change near them is not bad news is an absolute necessity the system will not deliver. Without it, delivering the government’s change agenda will simply not happen. So here is my two-pennyworth in response.
Chris Worrall is an Associate Industry Fellow at Onward with a lot of experience. His analysis of the market failings in the newly published Scarcity by Design: How the Planning System Turns Global Gluts into Local Pain makes many forceful, valid points about market failure. Many of which I endorse. But I do not recognise his central points that global financial surpluses drive the prices of Uk building land. Nor do I believe that our disjointed housing supply is at its base level led by political differences. This is a popular and misguided view. What is ideologically divisive about spatial decisions to build here, but not build here? But unfortunately in many popular high demand council areas local activists on the right and on the left have weaponised spatial planning and in doing so, have displaced long term, civic thinking which used to be the basis of local council policy making. This change is for the worse. It has introduced yaboo politics into local arenas and serves no purpose except the creation of phoney divisions. It first started in the seventies in popular areas like the Thames Valley and is universal now.
Land prices, always were and always will be, a sensitive barometer of market sentiment at a moment in time. Deals selling land (or legal interests in land in urban areas) is a sticky market, with comparatively few transactions, and is often conducted with little transparency and no media exposure. So it is a little understood market by commentators. These transactions are often large and complicated deals. Frequently preceded by long, and sometimes intricate too-ing and fro-ing between the parties as they seek the best outcome. The negotiations and the actual deals are always shrouded by secrecy for sound business reasons. This market characteristic makes it a more difficult market to understand but fortunately the land market acts like any other market once buyers and sellers are aligned.With one unique difference. The vendors in nearly every case have owned the land (or their legal interest) for many years, making them very cautious and very well informed. Their starting point to selling their unique asset is simple. If in doubt, do nowt. For buyers, and their intermediaries this mind-set of vendors is central to their own thinking. It explains why land ( and legal interest) owners resent with such deep loathing the prospect of being compelled to sell. It is the vendor’s mind-set with deep roots in the recent past that dominates why payment of hope value is such a contentious issue for land owners. And explains why they will invest heavily in tactics to block all attempts at forced sales. Global opportunism may have an incidental role, but domestic lenders love lending buyers the cash to buy (or buy control of) land. As Tom Sawyer said, ‘they are not making it anymore’.
Hugh Ellis is the Town and Country Planning Association’s Director of Policy. In the November-December 2025 volume of Town and Country Planning he publishes A titanic experiment in which he dissects the Planning and Infrastructure Bill with a scalpel. He too makes some very good points, but draws some conclusions which are not right. . He condemns the government’s new planning initiatives, pointing out that the volume housebuilders do not have a financial incentive to meet the government’s housing targets, adding deregulation may increase their profits and those who assist developers likewise. He suggests a Faustian pact with house builders. I instead see the dangers of creating policy based on advice from vested interests.
Despite some insights, to say
‘The obsession with restructuring the planning system since 2010 has been a complete waste of time and money. Planning was never the key problem to housing delivery.’ has caused deep wonderment. Although he is right to also say
’Rather than consolidating planning legislation, the government has continued the trend of incremental tinkering and endless amendments, until no one-not even experts-can understand the English planning system.
Where we have very different takes is Ellis has big doubts about the plans to limit local democratic control of planning. He does not explain, why if planning is never the key problem to housing delivery, a system built on local democratic overlordship which consigns national needs to the optional tray, how the homes the infrastructure and the economic growth so desperately needed will be delivered? Recent history shows how myopic local control has broken the system, and made a generation of young people carry an unnecessary financial housing burden.
What then is the way ahead? It is the removal of uncertainty. Explaining the vision for the 2030’s and 2040’s in detail, and area by area. It is renewing trust in a broken system. This will take time; more than a decade. We must look at the timeframes used by state of the art housing suppliers like the Crown Estate to build something in which we can be proud: measured by the creation of premium values. We must give control of future building locations back to local councils, with the necessary resources (all funded by land value capture) and dump the shameful call for sites discredited system. Talk about abdicating leadership responsibility. It is a disgrace! Above all we must achieve local political alignment that ensures policy continuity and consistency. Or take spatial powers away from councils unwilling to lead. To provide the requisite certainty of delivery all local councils will need to formally register their vision, their building locations at least ten years ahead with the government register. . So the shrewd ones can start buying early and avoid paying land value capture. After all having too much demand is usually seen as a good news story provided the resources exist to meet demand. With lots of thought, sufficient time, and cross-party co-operation the housing crisis can become a miracle making success story.
Ian Campbell
15 December 2025
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