Josh Nicholson, Author at Red Brick

New data released this week shows that rough sleeping surged to over 9,500 in July 2025. Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) analysis shows this is a 94 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2021.

One of the most disturbing trends in this week’s data is the entrenchment of long-term rough sleeping. In September 2025, nearly 4,000 people had been seen sleeping rough for multiple months, an increase of over a quarter (28 per cent) since September 2023. Long-term rough sleepers are now the largest group of people sleeping rough on our streets.

The Labour government inherited much of this mess – but on its watch the problem has only gotten worse. Rough sleeping hasn’t fallen in the government’s first year, just the Minister and Secretary of State.

Charity groups have been told the homelessness strategy is imminent. This is the government’s chance to tackle these trends head on and bring about the change and renewal it has promised.

Alongside an expected emphasis on prevention and temporary accommodation, the homelessness strategy must also contain a plan to reverse rough sleeping numbers, particularly the growing number of people who have been living on our streets long-term.

More of the same won’t cut it. Often people who have been homeless for years, or have complex problems like drug addiction or mental illness, cannot access housing through the current system. Many live their lives drifting, being passed between prisons, hospital wards, and hostels – at risk to the public and to the dangers of life on the streets.

Alongside Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the CSJ has outlined a fully costed plan which would tackle these trends head on: a national rollout of Housing First. This approach has been successfully piloted in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and the West Midlands, where 84 per cent of clients sustained long term housing after three years.

Housing First begins with a simple but powerful principle: a permanent home. From that solid foundation, people can access the tailored, wraparound support they need to address deep-rooted challenges. It’s an approach grounded in common sense, recognising that no one can rebuild their life whilst trapped in an endless cycle of homelessness, emergency accommodation, and crisis services.

The evidence is resounding and for a government strapped for cash, it has a 2:1 return on investment. Our plan is also fully funded. For just £100 million, the government could take over 5,500 people off the streets by the end of the Parliament, paid for by scrapping expensive relocation expenses for civil servants and cutting back the programme which moves them to the regions.

For a government seeking national renewal, it is hard to imagine a better place to begin than by ending the visible symbol of state and societal failure that is rough sleeping. If the homelessness strategy doesn’t fix this, it will be judged a failure, no matter what else it achieves.

If Keir Starmer was to pick one success story this Christmas, it might be the growing momentum behind his government’s ambitions for housebuilding and planning reform. But as the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) showed in a new report last month, chasing housing targets cannot be the sole ambition. Creating neighbourhoods and communities matters as well.

This week we will get two major announcements on the government’s ambitions to build 1.5 million new homes. The first was announced on Monday: an overhaul of local planning committees to fast-track certain development. The second: confirmation on wide-reaching reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Much of this is to be welcomed. It is good news that the government is showing the political will and ambition that will be needed to deliver meaningful reforms to the English planning system. We urgently need to increase the supply of new homes, and the first step must be to reduce the chronic uncertainty, delays and costs associated with getting a planning application approved.

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The only thing missing is the same ambition to improve the quality of the built environment. Although the government has expressed a commitment to improving good design and quality, we have yet to see meaningful action to back up their words. What we do know is to expect confirmation of the removal of six references to beauty within the NPPF. This follows the closure of the Office for Place (the body set up to help local authorities create beautiful, successful and enduring places) last month.

It is understandable that Labour ministers cringe at legacy bodies like the Office for Place and seemingly subjective references to beauty left by the last government. However, the decision to scrap both are a missed opportunity to promote good quality and attractive development, as well as to increase public support for housebuilding.

CSJ polling finds that the public are suspicious of development and are generally negative on how well new build housing contributes to the existing community. 62 per cent of adults say they have no meaningful say in how their area develops over time. 52 per cent say that local people do not have enough power to block new housing development. Nearly half (49 per cent) say that architects and planners are out of touch with what local people want in their community.

An emphasis on place-making and beauty are not just conservative concerns. Neither are they NIMBYism (not in my back yard) in disguise. In fact, there is a rich socialist heritage to draw on that emphasises objective goods in our built environment. For example, spaces which contribute to community life, improve the living conditions of the most disadvantaged, and tackle inequalities like air pollution’s disproportionate impact on the most deprived areas. As the post-war Labour Minister, Nye Bevan, once said: “While we shall be judged for a year or two by the number of houses we build…we shall be judged in ten years’ time by the type of houses we build.”

Looking back over the last decade, the previous government’s record on housing can be judged a failure on both counts. There is an affordability and quality crisis. An unhealthy built environment is fostering social ills like the epidemic of loneliness that government data published last week, shows is worse than ever before. A record 3.1 million adults said they felt lonely often or always last year.

The built environment is fundamentally associated with loneliness. For example, CSJ analysis has found a statistically significant relationship between loneliness and access to green space. Over half of adults who have access to green space never feel lonely. But for adults who have no access to green space, this relationship reverses. Over half say they feel lonely.

Green spaces, walkable streets, community infrastructure and gentle density all contribute to a beautiful and socially connected built environment. These are exactly the features that should be prioritised in design codes as a way of giving certainty to developers. These are documents which contain design requirements for the physical development of a site or area and can be produced in consultation with local people.

If you meet the criteria outlined in locally produced design codes, the answer to development applications should be a resounding yes. Whilst government has indicated their enthusiasm for design codes as a way of increasing building, the closure of the Office for Place which was set up to help local authorities actually do this, appears inconsistent.

Alongside the positive announcements this week, we need to see a tangible guarantee that the government will improve the quality and design of new housing across the country. In particular, how the work of the Office for Place is going to be continued by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The government should not miss the opportunity to bring the public along with them on the journey to 1.5 million new homes. If not, the political and social ramifications could be huge.

The government’s proposals for housebuilding are centred on economic growth. This is understandable and important. But growth should not be the only aim. The government must consider its duty to support the creation of places that foster social connection, community and belonging. A decade of national renewal depends on it.