Conversation during the Christmas break with sensible and informed observers of the broken housing market have made me see that what is plain to me is not plain to them. To repair the broken housing supply delivery pipeline, as I have said in previous blogs, there is an absolute necessity for a two step plan, separated by transition phase of ten or more years.
During step one, ie. 2026-2035, which is also the transition phase, local council policies for controlling the delivery of building land do not change. . Land with planning consent for house building, whether at scale regionally strategic housing or at scale regeneration and higher densification local infill housing identified for building in the local plan will continue for at least ten years or until either the local plan expires or earlier ( not earlier than 2035) if the council prefers. So too will local plan policies applicable to smaller sites, which do not fall into the at scale category.,
Whilst councils local plan policies will not change in the transition phase local councils will immediately be free to join the NLS as soon as it takes effect, The National Land Service will be a register, managed and maintained by the housing Ministry of all at scale future housing locations that are selected by local councils showing where the long term local housing needs of their locality will happen. All other locations not entered into the NLS register will be blocked from at scale planning applications. These chosen locations may be rural sites involving change of agricultural use to urban use, or may be existing urban use places identified by the local council as the appropriate location for replacement with at scale regeneration or at scale densification, or both.
In order to qualify for inclusion on the NLS register the selected location local councils must first within the timeframe of Step 1, ie. ten years from the NLS taking effect, take into their ownership one or more key ownerships within their identified locations. . During this transition phase from a privately led (call for sites system) to the council led ( NLS registered) spatial led system of publicly chosen building locations local councils will as part owners exclusively be required to immediately appoint master planners. Their brief will be to prepare a strategic long term spatial plan for the 10+ location. But with a crucial difference.,The instructions will be on the basis that the council alone, at planning application stage, will decide the extent and timing of the actual building locations, the uses to which individual sites will be put and the public open space. Furthermore all of which potential,uses will remain unofficial until a date at least ten years after the council has taken ownership of at least two thirds of the land subject to the NLS register application.
Why is the 10+ year delay rule crucial? It is to ensure accusations by land owners that their land, or legal interest in urban locations, is being compulsorily acquired without payment of hope value are wrong. On the contrary all land will be purchased at full open market value, always including any hope value which exists. Due to the twin uncertainties of time and location, the market in practice will not pay hope value for legal interests or potential building land if the earliest date for removal of these unknowns is ten or more years. Lead times of more than ten years will ensure all, or virtually all land value capture released through the planning process will therefore accrue to local councils.
Some will also say that the act of compelling reluctant land owners to sell equates to sequestration or nationalisation of hope value. The latter claim is true for at scale changes of use. . The former is not. But it is also true the owners receive open market value at the time of the sale, in accordance will customary practice. The supplementary argument that the owners, left to their own choice would have preferred to wait, as in many cases they will have done already can be matched with the counter-argument that hope value is created by past and present actions of public bodies over decades and generations. Its continuation is an error of recent history. Fairness and equitable conduct means admitting a community asset was set aside. It is time this public error is corrected.
Blight may be an issue for some councils, particularly in London, keen to promote regeneration in chosen locations to fulfil their housing targets. Blight usually only arises where the value of existing residential homes could be undermined by long term, public plans for land use change. Whether blight is payable is a political decision on a case by case basis.
Step 2 takes effect at least ten years after local councils have bought their first legal interest. The act of appointing master planners with a 10+ year brief will act as a catalyst for local debate. In doing so, it removes one of the major barriers to obtaining local support for local change. Removal of the much disliked element of ‘surprise’ so often resented by local residents will help to enable a local welcome for future change. By then local councils must own most of the land on the NLS register. The shrewd ones will have lined up resale agreements for parts of the at scale site so funding needs will be reduced.,They will of course sell on at prices which include 100% of the hope value.,
Local councils who continue to deny their new long term civic responsibilities will become subject to government sanctions.
Ian Campbell
1 January 2026
