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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Reforming the housing association model in the 10-year plan for housing

The delivery of new homes is at the centre of government’s plans for growth, and its radical moves so far to unblock planning are very welcome, but they won’t deliver unless we get the foundations right. The changes needed to get even close to 1.5m homes are much deeper, and more difficult, but it is also possible that only this government with its will to build could deliver them.

Housing associations deliver most of Britain’s affordable housing and the “mixed funding” model we use is a product of the 1988 Housing Act that enabled private borrowing to improve Britain’s housing at scale for the first time. At the time, before the fall of the Berlin Wall and when Bros topped the charts, the investment this enabled led to very real improvements to the homes of millions of people.

Through this model, housing associations invest in homes using debt supported by the net rents from existing homes, after covering normal costs of management and maintenance. This enabled significant private finance to be raised for investment into social homes. As of 31 March 2024, the housing association sector had £99.7bn of drawn debt, which has been invested in existing and new homes.

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But now that it has reached its fifth decade, the model is showing strain. There are limits to sector borrowing, with the model stretched by rent reductions and the rent cap that was right at the time but came without any mechanism to recoup lost income. This income deficit continues to be compounded by maintenance costs soaring far above the headline rates of inflation, older homes that are reaching the end of their practical lifespan, and ever-increasing expectations of service delivery policed by stringent regulation.

In basic terms, the cost of managing and maintaining many social homes is above the level of income that the home generates, primarily through rents. This is unsustainable, and it does not even benefit existing social housing residents as providers make increasingly tough choices where to invest dwindling resource.

The strain on the housing association sector is evidenced by the average interest cover ratio[1] for the sector now being below 100% for the first time since the 2007/08 global financial crisis. This is a key measure of an organisation’s ability to cover finance costs from operating income and contrasts to a sector average in 2019 of over 150%. Some of this deterioration is down to a sustained rise in borrowing costs due to the current interest rate environment but that is not expected to change in the medium-term.

In the more recent past some organisations sought to create more ongoing capacity through cross-subsidy from developing and selling homes for sale. While sometimes effective, this brought additional risk and complexity, which is still being worked through in some organisations. Recent surges in construction costs, far above increases in values in most cases, and increased regulatory requirements in the construction of new homes also undermine this model. It simply doesn’t work in many areas of the country, where costs of constructing a home are now above its value.

This doesn’t just damage social housing. One symptom of the model failing that has bled into the wider development market is that Section 106 homes, the affordable element of most market development schemes, have remained unsold to housing associations at record levels as associations focus limited resource on meeting regulatory requirements for existing homes. This jams up the delivery of all new homes.

Housing associations suffer because they offer a practical solution to a political problem, neither satisfying those who believe that affordable housing should be provided primarily by the state, or those who see housing simply as a market.

This isn’t good enough, and a new model needs to be created that sets ideology to one side and enables a sustainable affordable housing sector. The Government can’t fully fund a huge building programme at the same time as retrofitting the oldest and draftiest homes in Europe, nor will the market alone deliver the affordable homes we need.

The development of this new model should be collaborative, and that government should bring together a group, possibly similar to the New Towns Taskforce, for a once in a generation revision of the funding of social homes. This group should carefully consider a range of options and the costs, requirements, and rents underpinning social landlords as organisations.

In the meantime, a ten-year CPI+1% rent settlement with convergence would give the breathing space for this work to happen. If this group’s work starts now then there would be a fundamentally different sector in ten years’ time, doing much more for current and future residents.

[1]Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation inclusive of capitalised major repairs (EBITDA MRI) interest cover which measures net revenues before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation less spend on capitalised major repairs as a percentage of the organisations’ contractual interest payments in the year.

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How Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill will get Britain building again

Working people in Britain are paying the cost of our failure to build new homes and infrastructure over the past 50 years. Housing supply has fallen far short of demand, driving up prices, making homes harder to afford, and leaving too many people without any decent options.

Labour has pledged to build 1.5 million homes over this Parliament to address the crisis. But to do so, we need to fix the planning system, streamline decision-making, and ensure that land is available for new homes.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, recently introduced by the Labour Government, is a major step towards achieving these goals. By cutting unnecessary hurdles, freeing up land, and ensuring local authorities have the tools to support housebuilding, this Bill will increase the number of homes built and make housebuilding faster, fairer, and more predictable.

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Faster planning decisions

A major barrier to house building in the UK is the slow and unpredictable planning process. This is bad for everyone — it annoys local people as they cannot be sure if or when building will commence; it makes building more costly as housebuilders have to spend more on lawyers and consultants; and it frustrates councils as it delays targets to meet local housing needs. The new Bill introduces several key reforms to make planning decisions quicker and more efficient:

  • Cutting unnecessary delays: The Bill streamlines the process for approving planning applications, ensuring that unnecessary bureaucracy does not hold back development. It will reduce the number of statutory consultees from over 25 to a more manageable size that ensures that council time isn’t wasted.
  • Delegating more decisions to planning officers: A national scheme will determine which planning applications can be approved by officers rather than committees, helping to reduce unnecessary delays and saves committee time for the big decisions.
  • Mandatory training for planning committee members: Poor decision-making and a lack of confidence at the local level can often hold up new homes. Under the Bill, planning committee members will need training and certification before making decisions, ensuring they understand the planning system.
  • Councils can set their own planning fees: This will ensure local planning authorities (LPAs) are properly resourced and can invest in service quality improvements.

These changes will mean that planning applications are determined faster, with greater consistency and fewer bureaucratic delays.

Making development work for communities

The Bill will make it easier for the Government to take action and deal with the housing crisis. Too often landowners and vested interests make it difficult to build the homes we need. The Bill tackles this issue by making more land available at a fairer price:

  • Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) reform: Local authorities will have more power to buy land for development at lower prices by removing ‘hope value’ — the speculative premium that landowners expect based on future planning permissions.
  • Stronger powers for Development Corporations: These public bodies will be given greater flexibility to plan and deliver large-scale housing projects, ensuring that major new communities are built in a coordinated and strategic way.
  • New Spatial Development Strategies (SDS): Combined authorities will be required to create regional housing plans, setting targets and identifying growth areas. This will enable cross-boundary cooperation, ensuring housing needs are met across multiple local areas.

These reforms will prevent land speculation from driving up costs, making new housing developments more viable.

Making housebuilding happen

Major housing developments often get stuck in a cycle of delays and legal challenges, even after receiving approval. The Bill includes measures to streamline large-scale developments:

  • Faster approval for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs): Large housing-led infrastructure projects will no longer be bogged down in endless consultation and legal battles.
  • Regular updates to National Policy Statements (NPSs): These statements guide major infrastructure and housing decisions. The Bill requires updates every five years to ensure policies remain aligned with housing targets and investment needs.
  • Limiting judicial review challenges: The Bill removes paper permission stages for judicial reviews and restricts appeals for cases deemed “totally without merit”, preventing frivolous legal actions from delaying housing projects.

By ensuring that major housing developments proceed quickly and efficiently, the Bill will unlock thousands of new homes that would otherwise be stuck in legal and bureaucratic limbo.

Infrastructure and energy reform to support new homes

A lack of supporting infrastructure can be a major barrier to housebuilding. The Bill tackles this by ensuring transport, energy, and utilities can keep pace with new developments:

  • Better transport planning: Faster approvals for road, rail, and public transport projects will ensure new homes are built with the necessary connectivity.
  • Electricity grid reform: The shift to a “first ready, first connected” system for energy projects will prevent housing developments from being delayed by slow grid connections.
  • EV charging expansion: The Bill removes licensing barriers for installing electric vehicle charging points, ensuring new housing developments are future-proofed for sustainable transport.

By addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, these reforms will remove key barriers that prevent new housing developments from being delivered at scale.

Labour to get Britain building

Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill represents the biggest planning reform in a generation. By speeding up planning approvals, unlocking land for development, and ensuring infrastructure keeps pace with growth, it lays the groundwork for the Government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament.

For too long, a broken planning system has stifled communities, locking out renters and first-time buyers. With this Bill, Labour is removing some key obstacles, creating a fairer system, and getting Britain building again.

If we want to solve the housing crisis, we need bold action. The bill is a great foundation to deliver it.

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How to increase housebuilding by adopting the 15-minute city

Understanding the 15-Minute City and the 20-Minute Neighbourhood

The concept of the 15-Minute City is an urban planning model where residents can access the majority of their daily necessities such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure within a 15-minute walk, bike ride, or public transit trip from their homes. This design approach aims to reduce dependence on automobiles, fostering healthier, more sustainable lifestyles and improving the overall wellbeing and quality of life for city residents.

The core idea behind the 15-Minute City is to create a human-centric environment that prioritises walking, cycling, and the use of public transportation over car use. In line with this vision, urban areas designed as 15-Minute Cities often feature abundant green spaces, bike lanes, and pedestrian-friendly walkways, rather than emphasising car-centric infrastructure. This concept is also referred to by various terms, including 20-Minute Cities, 20-Minute Neighbourhoods, or Complete Communities, all of which share a similar focus on accessibility and sustainability.

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Key Benefits of the 15-Minute City and 20-Minute Neighbourhood

The 15-Minute City and 20-Minute Neighbourhood concepts offer numerous benefits, many of which have already been realised in areas where these models have been implemented:

Reduced Reliance on Vehicles: The primary objective of the 15-Minute City is to minimise vehicle dependency by ensuring that essential amenities and services are within a short walking, biking, or transit distance. This shift not only alleviates traffic congestion but also lowers carbon emissions and promotes healthier lifestyles through increased physical activity.

Reduced Pollution: By decreasing the need for personal vehicle use, this urban planning approach contributes to lower pollution levels. Fewer vehicles on the road result in decreased traffic and congestion, improving air quality. Additionally, the reduction of noise pollution, which has been linked to various health issues such as stress, anxiety, and hearing loss, is another positive outcome.

Economic Benefits: While the 15-Minute City model is often associated with large urban centres, it is equally applicable to smaller towns and rural areas. In these settings, it can drive increased foot traffic, stimulate local commerce, and create job opportunities, thus providing a much-needed boost to local economies.

Enhanced Public Health and Wellbeing: The design of 15-Minute Cities typically incorporates more green spaces, cleaner air, and easier access to essential services, all of which contribute to a higher quality of life. These elements encourage outdoor activity, improving both physical and mental health. Additionally, the reduction of pollution and increased access to community spaces can help combat issues such as depression and loneliness.

Improved Social Connectivity: The 15-Minute City model fosters more connected communities. With amenities and services located within close proximity, residents can more easily engage with each other, fostering stronger social bonds and enhancing opportunities for social interaction, entertainment, and community engagement.

Controversies Surrounding the 15-Minute City and 20-Minute Neighbourhood

Despite its many advantages, the 15-Minute City concept has faced criticism, particularly from those who raise concerns about potential restrictions on personal mobility. Some detractors argue that these models could lead to overly controlled or confined communities, limiting freedom of movement.

However, this concern is often mitigated when such developments are supported by robust public transit systems. The best examples of well-planned 15-Minute Cities invariably have public transportation facilitates to travel both within and beyond the designated area, complementing the use of private cars. Rather than banning car usage, the model aims to reduce reliance on them, offering residents greater flexibility. Public transit provides increased mobility for those who cannot drive or afford a car, ultimately expanding their options for travel and enhancing overall freedom of movement.

Incorporating Public Transit into the 15 minute City Urban Planning Concept

The role of Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) in facilitating new housing has been highlighted in a previous article ‘Building homes connected to infrastructure, the benefits of Transit Oriented Developments’. Like 15-Minute Cities, TODs are inherently designed as high-density, mixed-use communities. By integrating TOD design principles into the 15-Minute City and 20-Minute Neighbourhood frameworks, and incorporating housing as a central element, these urban models can play a significant role in addressing the growing demand for new housing.

Adopting the design principles of the 15-Minute City, 20-Minute Neighbourhood, and TODs allows for sustainable urban developments that can support higher population densities. This approach simultaneously enhances the effectiveness of public transit systems. A larger residential population located near transit hubs creates a greater passenger base, which, in turn, helps justify further investment in transit infrastructure. This creates a well-connected, sustainable urban environment that meets both housing and mobility needs.

What can be done to Promote this Concept

To minimise the use of undeveloped land and avoid the high costs associated with new public transit systems or extensive road construction, the development of high-density, transit-connected urban hubs is essential. Achieving the ambitious housing target of 1.5 million homes of varying types and tenures within a relatively short time frame will require such urban hubs.

By drawing on best practices from cities around the world with successful examples of TOD and 15-Minute City designs, the government should provide clear design guidance and principles. These guidelines will help local planning authorities (LPAs) and Development Corporations develop both new and existing urban hubs, while addressing potential opposition to these developments.

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Labour’s Planning Bill is the keystone of its housing delivery plans

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner NPPF visit by No. 10 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

On Monday 24th March, the most ambitious planning reform in a generation will be debated in the House of Commons. Labour’s’ Planning and Infrastructure Bill is the latest in a number of changes to the planning system, and will be central to the Government’s plan to deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament.

What does the Planning and Infrastructure Bill do?

The remit of the Bill goes well beyond housing and targets the planning obstacles to delivery in a number of key areas:

  • Simplifying the approval process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), including by reducing consultation requirements for these.
  • Establishing a Nature Restoration Fund for developers to pay into to address issues like nutrient neutrality.
  • Compulsory Purchase reform, so that councils can acquire land for social housing at existing use value rather than inflated ‘hope’ value.
  • Reforming planning committees, including the introduction of compulsory training and a delegation scheme to empower non-political council officers to make more decisions.
  • Introducing sub-regionally developed Spatial Development Strategies to encourage councils to work across their borders.

The Bill also has a number of other measures such as the devolution of planning fees, and reforming and strengthening development corporations to make their roll-out easier.

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How will this address the housing crisis?

In essence, the Bill eliminates some important reasons for which homes do not make it through the consenting process, or are stalled after approval.

For instance, introducing a Nature Restoration Fund will help to unlock 160,000 homes blocked by nutrient neutrality rules.

Reforming Compulsory Purchase Orders will also make it easier for local authorities to deliver council homes. Hope value can inflate agricultural land by as much as 275 times its existing value, and can result in councils having to decrease the percentage of social homes on a site.

Measures around spatial development strategies and reforming committees should also help to resolve issues where large sites are made more contentious due to the lack of existing infrastructure. By ensuring that councils are coordinating across boundaries to provide key services, and by ensuring that more decisions are made by council officers, political factors should play less of a role in discretionary planning decisions.  

A keystone to other Labour’s plans:

The Bill cannot be seen in isolation, and instead has to be viewed as part of a package of measures which the Government is using to achieve a much-needed uplift in housing delivery.

It comes alongside an update to the National Planning Policy Framework, which restored and strengthened housing targets, alongside allocating low-quality ‘grey belt’ land for high quality developments with affordable and social housing and the enrichment of green space.

There have also been a number of reforms to boost delivery in urban areas, not least the introduction of brownfield planning passports, so that development on brownfield sites automatically goes ahead if it meets local planning requirements. Also in this category are plans to allow for ‘zoning’ around train stations.

Finally, the Government has added £800 million to the Affordable Homes Programme, and refocused it on the delivery of social housing, so that private housebuilding is supplemented with crucial state provision.

Labour’s ‘everything theory of housing’

It was clear from the outset that the Government had a ‘Housing theory of everything’. Solving the housing crisis will be crucial to a number of Labour’s aims to improve living standards, generate growth, and solve the climate crisis, and Labour clearly understands this.

But the way in which they have gone about this programme also shows that they have an ‘everything theory of housing’, using a range of levers to boost delivery, and clearly identifying which issues need solving through primary legislation, which through policy tweaks, and which through further funding.

Doing this alongside passing a generational boost to the rights of private renters, reforming the feudal leasehold system and introducing commonhold as a default tenure, boosting funding for homelessness prevention and setting up a cross-Government homelessness taskforce, increasing resourcing for the Building Safety Regulator and accelerating the remediation of dangerous cladding, investing £3.4 billion into a new Warm Homes Plan, and identifying 100 sites for urban extensions or new towns, shows a Government in hyperdrive to fix this most pressing of crises.

Planning reforms have so far primarily addressed stalled housing delivery in exurban and rural areas, where delivering new homes is, in theory, easiest. Going forward, the Government also needs to tackle other critical barriers to building new homes, such as the cost of building homes, and the construction sector’s skills shortage, not to mention issues around densification and regeneration or urban sites. Looking ahead to the Comprehensive Spending Review, finding ways to support councils building as has been laid out in Red Brick’s 10-year plan for housing series will be welcome to boost much-needed council homes.

But, for the present, the Second Reading debate of the Bill on 24th March should provide an opportunity to celebrate legislation which will meaningfully contribute to ending the housing crisis, and to make the case for how important it will be going forwards for this to remain at the top of the Government’s agenda.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Living with the Private Rented Sector

Whatever the housing sector looks like over the next 10 years, it is a certainty that the private rented sector will remain a major part of its makeup. Currently the second largest form of tenure after ownership, it is likely to remain so for much, if not all, of the next decade.

It has also become the default form of tenure for those for whom it is, in many ways, manifestly unsuitable – there are increasing numbers of retirement age private tenants, increasing numbers of families, and, in the absence of sufficient social housing, large numbers of low income and otherwise homeless people. This is not a problem that is going to go away quickly.

For all these reasons, a long term plan for the private rented sector is vital, even if most answers are ‘well you don’t want to start from here’.

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The Renters’ Rights Bill (in the House of Lords at the time of writing) is a very significant step forward.  I think we have forgotten how unthinkable some of the measures in the Bill would have been 10 years ago. It is the biggest change to the PRS in 37 years. My view is that it will have both immediate and longer term effects in shaping the PRS.

It hugely reduces the central problem with the PRS – the inbuilt, deliberate instability of tenure for tenants – and with that, gives tenants more confidence to pursue their rights in terms of housing conditions, unlawful charges, over-market rent increases etc. that had been deterred by the (often justified) fear that complaints would result in a section 21 notice and eviction.

It goes some way towards encouraging an actual market in PRS tenancies by enabling tenants to serve notice and leave an unsatisfactory, or overly expensive, property with two months notice, not locked into a year or longer fixed term that could not be terminated earlier.

The ‘landlord database’ – a de facto national landlord register for England – could be a powerful tool for addressing the criminal end of the sector, addressing undeclaration of income tax, but also, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging or requiring the professionalisation of the sector. (Most PRS landlords have only one or two properties. The extent of ignorance over the law and their obligations is breathtaking.)  What information is recorded on the database, and what information will be available to current or prospective tenants will be key.

The prospect of a new Decent Homes Standard applying across both social housing and the PRS could be a very effective move. We know that housing standards are generally lower in the PRS than the social housing sector, though there are far too many poor quality and hazardous homes in both. But what the standard will be and how enforced will be key.

There are some ‘could be’s here for two reasons. First, the devil will be in the detail of forthcoming regulations, and second because the effectiveness of the regulations will largely be reliant on enforcement by Local Housing Authorities.

If it all goes right, the direction of travel for the PRS should be better standards of accommodation, a focus on longer term tenancies and steady rental income. Not short term rent-inflating tenancies and a model based on ‘passive income’ paying the mortgage on properties where the landlord’s real gain is quickly realisable increased equity in the property.

If it all goes right, the sector will become increasingly professional, and the criminal actors be identified and suffer penalties that make the risk not worth the reward.

But that will need enforcement. The track record of LHAs on housing-related enforcement over the last decade is, to put it mildly, patchy. About half of LHAs do none at all. This has to change – enforcement staff must be recruited and trained, active policies on enforcement set out. This may require, at the least, seed funding for LHAs and for training programmes.

As the Renters’ Rights Bill proceeds, there have been inevitable and loud calls for rent controls in the PRS. To which the current answer is ‘well, you don’t want to start from here’. There is no tried model of rent control that doesn’t either raise rents overall, or result in the sector shrinking at speed.  At this point, we simply can’t afford for either to happen. The homelessness crisis is already severe, and LHAs are finding it increasingly impossible to find affordable PRS accommodation by which they can discharge their duty to the homeless. A shrinking PRS hits both ends of that equation. Maybe in 10 years and with a lot more social housing, things might be different, but right now it is a potential disaster.

That said, local housing allowance rates cannot remain frozen. The rate currently does not restrict rents, it reduces supply.

The Renters’ Rights Bill sets the stage for the future direction of the PRS, and it really needs to be considered in terms of its potential longer term impact on the culture and practices of the PRS, not just the immediate changes to tenure. But there is a lot of detail to get right in the subsequent regulations, and then a lot of LHA enforcement to do, to really bring that home over the next decade.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Looking back over 7 years ahead of the 10-year plan for housing

Image by the justified sinner licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

In the debate on the King’s Speech last summer, the Prime Minister said that “the fight for trust is the battle that defines our era”. Frightening but true. During my seven years as Chief Executive of Shelter, the catastrophic loss of trust in institutions and experts, the disenchantment and disenfranchisement of so many people, the polarisation of the public discourse, the pandemic of misinformation – all these are now the stuff of nightmares. Yet the basic building blocks of the social contract, of people’s sense of having a stake in the country, are enduring. I have always believed that a safe home is paramount among these, and in those seven years that belief has only strengthened.

Despite a world that is so much more frightening than it was then, we are actually closer to bringing that safe home within the reach of many more people. I am proud of having played any role in that. But also I’m truly afraid that the progress of the last seven years could still slip away. That’s a political choice, and one that still has to be set in stone.

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When I joined Shelter in 2017, although we had not yet experienced the loss of innocence that would accompany the pandemic, Trump’s first victory, the world domination of conspiracy and polarisation, my view of the job ahead was fundamentally shaped by that most horrific and unjust of catastrophes, the Grenfell Tower fire. It was a symbol of systemic neglect of the duty to provide a decent home for people on low incomes. It laid bare the lethal consequences of the demonisation of social housing tenants that had pervaded policy, practice and indeed entertainment for decades.

Just a few years earlier, Inside Housing had declared “The Death of Social Housing” on its front cover, and frankly it looked to me as though, instead of resisting that narrative, the entire sector (including Shelter) had accepted defeat.

It seemed urgent to speak truth to power, however unwelcome: to speak with not for the people with the most to lose or gain from housing policy, to translate the appalling stories that colleagues in our frontline services were hearing every day into clear goals and action.

So where are we now? There has been much to celebrate during my time at Shelter: the work of an incredible group of colleagues, with the support of many thousands of campaigners they have mobilised up and down the country.

Housing is back on the agenda and social housing is not a dirty word. It was a core issue of both national and local elections. Mayors were fighting it out to outbid one another on the number of social homes and Labour, the Greens and Liberal Democrats all recognised the importance of social housing in their manifestos. The current government has committed to the biggest increase in social and affordable homes in a generation and has changed local planning rules to include a focus on social rent. 

For us at Shelter it started with our Social Housing Commission in 2018, chaired by Reverend Mike Long of the Notting Hill Methodist Church near Grenfell, which brought together a panel of key figures across the political spectrum with grassroots campaigners like Grenfell Tower survivor Edward Daffarn. This was our line in the sand, a defining moment that signalled the need to work together to push for the systemic solution that is the only way to prevent and ultimately end homelessness. The Commission’s report was one of the main foundations of our ten-year strategy launched in 2019, which firmly and proudly put campaigning for social homes at the heart of Shelter’s work for a decade.

It took several years of campaigning with Grenfell United, and later with the family of Awaab Ishak, but in 2023 we finally saw the passing of the landmark Social Housing Regulation Act and the creation of Awaab’s law to ensure social tenants have protection against unhealthy and even life-threatening conditions.

We also took the decision in that strategy to fight for an end to no-fault evictions and give private renters greater security and stronger rights, a fight which is finally culminating in the once-in-a-generation Renters Rights’ Bill.  

We’ve seen other key victories along the way. The Conservative government restored local housing allowance to cover the cheapest third of rents after campaigning from Shelter – and passed legislation allowing councils to buy land without having to pay extortionate ‘hope value’. During the pandemic we pivoted in response to the emergency, and successfully pushed for a ban on all evictions.

And in 2021 and 2022 our strategic litigation saw the courts establish that refusing to rent to people on benefits is indirect discrimination and therefore unlawful under the Equality Act.

None of this would have happened, I believe, without the changes we made in Shelter to organise in our local communities and build a national movement for change. Our transformational support for individuals and families continues, but now those individuals, families and communities are at the heart of our campaigns as well as our services. We’re not a think tank, we are an activist organisation. We were not founded just to pick up the pieces, or to complain about how bad things are. We were founded to change things.

Which brings me to the future. Yes, the narrative on social housing has shifted beyond recognition since 2017. But that is not enough. Yes, the new government has demonstrated it is willing to reform planning, funding, legislation and policy in order to enable more social homes to be delivered. But the change we really need is yet to come.

Let me be clear: anything less than significant investment in social housing at the Spending Review will derail attempts to end homelessness and fail to fix our broken housing system. The government must deliver the lasting solutions that will transform this country and rebuild the rotting foundations of our society. The promise that hard work can bring a good life is broken in this country – a broken promise that is driving the upheaval we see all around us. 

The government needs to make that promise a reality again: a promise that begins with home.   

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Encouraging innovation in the 10-year plan for housing

The construction industry is a substantial and diverse sector. Beyond creating physical assets, the industry fundamentally shapes how we experience and interact with our environment. Construction encompasses not only the building of homes, but it also includes hospitals, schools, offices, shops, and critical infrastructure such as roads, rail, and utilities – all of which help to underpin the broader economy.

However, the adoption of innovation has been historically uneven across the sector. While construction in the energy sector is advancing new technologies, and a second high-speed rail line is anticipated from the transport sector, in contrast, the housing sector remains slow to implement new approaches. Instead, it persists with a model for housebuilding that consistently fails to keep pace with demand. The result is constrained supply, driving up house prices and rents. Meanwhile the supply of social and affordable homes has consistently fallen short for decades, despite the efforts of successive governments, creating an acute shortage that is deeply felt.

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Over the last decade we’ve witnessed the stuttering rebirth of modern methods of construction in the UK. This has been particularly challenging for those companies who adopted a modular approach which has been delivered successfully in other countries such as Japan, Germany, and Sweden.

In hindsight experts now recognise that modular house construction, known as category 1 according to the government’s MMC framework, was unlikely to deliver the volumes needed at scale due to a lack of accessibility across UK infrastructure. Category 1 homes are factory built, preconstructed rooms which are transported to site and assembled as homes or large structures. Market failures which include companies such as Ilke Homes, Legal & General Modular and Urban Splash Modular have cast a shadow over the industry and attempts to modernise how we deliver new homes. However, failure is a necessary and integral part of the innovation process, a reality we must recognise across all industries and learn from to develop the right outcomes.

This has led the market to adapt and move to utilising category 2 and 5 of the MMC framework which incorporates a panelised system, now recognised as fully deliverable across UK infrastructure. The case strengthens when you consider the additional benefits of reaching net-zero and ability to anticipate the Future Homes Standard, which is due to come into effect in 2025.

The housing industry’s challenge is no longer a lack of innovation, but rather the resistance to change that impedes its adoption. This is despite a widely held belief that without the adoption of new approaches, we will fail to meet government’s stretching housing targets.

Driven by existing market conditions, leading housebuilders and developers have long adhered to a tried and tested approach which has successfully aligned with their business model. In addition, fragmentation across the construction industry which incorporates multiple tiers of contractors, each with their own supply chain, prevents effective capturing and sharing of knowledge. This limits the dissemination of innovative solutions. Whilst these are inevitable consequences of the housing market, as the government implements new housing standards and regulations, the industry must eventually embrace new approaches that will help them keep pace, protect profits and deliver against future homes standards.

As the government grapples with balancing supply-side and demand-side measures, Homes England and the Greater London Authority continue to be the most significant sources of development support through capital grants. However, in many cases limited grant funding and rising construction costs have significantly undermined the viability of social and affordable housing development opportunities. This is particularly challenging for innovative new approaches that incorporate modern methods of construction due to perceived risk and lack of widespread industry adoption. This has resulted in a significant absence of viable opportunities, which will demand intervention to bring about change.

To encourage the adoption of innovative construction methods, we must re-evaluate the current approach to development appraisals. These are the financial evaluations used to assess the viability and profitability of a proposed residential development project, and are at present do not take into account the need for net-zero homes or of incoming quality standards.

This is particularly crucial in a sector that prioritises up-front costs, often deterring the adoption of new techniques and approaches despite their ability to meet net zero, dramatically improve performance of the asset and deliver lifecycle cost savings. Including a presumption in favour of net-zero homes that align with local planning and meet future homes standards, will speed up the delivery of high-quality homes, reduce risk and improve cost certainty.

This brings me to a salient point when considering a ten-year strategy for innovation. We need a system-wide approach that integrates innovative approaches into the development process. This should include new lifecycle appraisal modals, supportive finance and proactive development strategies that bring additive capacity to delivering new homes at pace.

With the support of our parent company AtkinsRéalis, we have fully embraced the principle of additive delivery that avoids disrupting existing housing supply. By leveraging a precision-engineered industrialised approach to development that utilises offsite manufacturing, we are able deliver net-zero, future-ready homes with a reduced impact onsite quicker and cleaner than traditional methods. 

I am pleased to see that the current government acknowledges the need for change, placing housebuilding at the centre of its growth strategy. To achieve its 1.5 million homes target, the Government must support the adoption of innovative solutions that can address the imbalance between supply and demand of new social and affordable homes. This is evidenced by more than 1.2 million households on the housing waiting lists and 123,100 households living in temporary accommodation. Business as usual will not address the problem. At EDAROTH, we believe in ‘housing as a verb’ and something we do to provide safe, secure, and truly affordable homes where people want to live, work, and prosper. We stand ready to deliver against that belief. However, we cannot do that alone. It will require collaboration, market intervention, accountability, and a willingness to embrace change to make it a reality.

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Blog Post

Attlee’s secret weapon to build homes: zoning

When people speak of planning, England typically emerges as a global anomaly in two senses. First, it has an unusually restrictive system. The result: among the most expensive housing in the world, but very little invested in the structures of our homes. Much of the value of our housing lies not in the structures themselves but in the planning permission for those structures to exist at all. Second, the English system lacks precise rules and relies on vague ‘policies’ whose application is unpredictable, costly and slow. Of course, many other planning systems have some element of discretion. In the US, it is called ‘discretionary review’, and it is common in unaffordable areas. Many pro-housing Democrats complain about this ‘discretionary review’ as a barrier to building more affordable homes. But  the US also has development regulations that explicitly map out permitted and prohibited development—a system known as ‘zoning’. England’s planning system is almost entirely discretionary, because the ‘policies’ that set out what is acceptable are so unclear and often in conflict.

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But beneath this familiar narrative lies a forgotten piece of history: England introduced, and occasionally still uses, a distinct form of zoning known as Special Development Orders (SDOs). Originating from the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, these orders provided a clear path for extensive, swift and predictable development once the rules had been decided. In essence, England had pockets of zoning—albeit hidden in plain sight.

Special Development Orders were created as a key part of the modern planning framework established by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government. The Act of 1947 is  famous for nationalizing development rights and introducing local authority-led planning permissions.

Right-wingers often claim that the system was anti-development from the outset. But this misunderstands the intent. This landmark reform also included provisions allowing the housing minister to accelerate development by granting broad planning permissions directly in specific areas, bypassing local discretion entirely. These government decisions—formalised as Special Development Orders—outlined explicitly what development was automatically allowed, effectively zoning areas for particular uses without further  delay.

The immediate post-war years showcased the practical value of these orders. For example, the development of Milton Keynes—one of England’s best-known New Towns—benefited significantly from an SDO issued in 1963. The Special Development Order permitted housing, commercial premises, schools, roads, and public amenities within clearly defined areas. By setting these permissions upfront, the government greatly simplified the subsequent development process. Rather than requiring each building or street to pass through individual planning approval, development in Milton Keynes could proceed swiftly, assured by clear zoning-like rules already established at a ministerial level.

This approach illustrates the potential of SDOs to facilitate quick and predictable development—but only after careful consideration of underlying principles and standards. Such a system does not remove the need for thoughtful deliberation; instead, it frontloads these decisions, enabling speedy delivery once consensus is reached. SDOs could prove invaluable today for initiatives like urban regeneration projects, where local stakeholders and government officials could first agree on development principles, allowing an SDO to subsequently unlock quick, predictable, and coordinated development.

England has continued to use other limited forms of zoning. Permitted Development Rights give automatic permissions for certain kinds of development. The rights are popularly used for limited home extensions such as loft conversions. Local Development Orders are sometimes used by councils to automatically permit specific kinds of building in certain areas.  And the Green Belts are also a form of zoning, albeit a most restrictive kind that essentially does not permit new homes at all.

Zoning alone, even in its most effective form, is insufficient to guarantee abundant housing. The critical challenge is not just adopting zoning rules but ensuring that those rules generously permit housebuilding where housing demand is greatest. Simply implementing zoning does not give us abundant or affordable housing if the zoning remains highly restrictive.

US suburban zoning exemplifies this clearly: in huge swathes of the US, the zoning permits no more than detached single family homes, each required to have its own enormous parcel of land. Such overly restrictive zoning, designed to exclude those on low incomes who cannot afford large detached houses, demonstrates vividly how precise rules may restrict rather than encourage more affordable homes. As a result, most homes in the US are built in rural areas with no local government where there are no zoning rules at all.

But England’s historical use of Special Development Orders hints that we have neglected a productive tool. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Government occasionally deployed SDOs when rapid or large-scale development aligned with national interests. Whether for New Towns or industrial parks in the 1960s or later enterprise zones, SDOs temporarily established a more generous and predictable environment—briefly mirroring international zoning practices, yet generally avoiding the restrictiveness seen in many parts of the US.

Despite their past effectiveness, Special Development Orders have largely faded from modern planning debates.  SDOs could be a vital tool in this Labour Government’s mission to build 1.5 million new homes. Previous New Towns such as Milton Keynes successfully used SDOs to enable large-scale, well-planned communities.  And the Government intends to use an SDO for the new Universal Studios theme park. But we should go much further than that if we are to build 1.5 million new homes this Parliament.

For all its faults, England’s planning system does have the tools to enable new homes to be clearly planned and quickly delivered. By carefully determining up front where and how growth is most urgently needed, Special Development Orders could become powerful tools for Labour again, particularly in contexts like urban renewal or building new infrastructure. For the Government to deliver quickly, it should use the best tools in our current planning system. Building the new homes that our communities desperately need cannot be delayed further. Attlee and other Labour Prime Ministers knew that delivering results for working people quickly mattered. It is time we renew this spirit of urgency. SDOs could help to transform our economy and build the new homes we need. 

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Lessons from the devolved nations for the 10-year plan for housing

Prime Minister Keir Starmer host Council of Nations and Regions by No.10 Downing Street is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The UK’s housing challenges are vast and multifaceted, ranging from affordability crises to inadequate supply. The devolved nations offer valuable insights into addressing them through innovative approaches and long-term strategies.

1. Leveraging devolution for a tailored approach

Since devolution, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have shaped housing policies to meet their specific needs. A good example of this is the Right to Buy (RTB), which Scotland abolished in 2016 to protect social housing supply. Similarly, Wales phased out discounts before fully abolishing the scheme in 2019, prioritising affordable housing supply.

The UK government has begun welcome reforms to limit social housing loss, but RTB remains centrally controlled. Since 2012, local authorities (LAs) have managed their Housing Revenue Accounts (HRAs) independently, yet RTB rules remain dictated by central government. Given councils’ financial independence—reflected in their ONS classification as “public corporations” and the £8 billion debt incurred to gain autonomy—local authorities should arguably have the power to set their own RTB policies. In contrast, Scottish LAs have had financial independence for many years and there is no centrally determined rent policy, so they still have more financial freedom than in England.

Empowering councils to manage RTB aligns with the government’s “devolution revolution” and would allow them to tailor policies to local housing needs, ensuring the scheme supports sustainable social housing supply.

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2. Scaling up affordable housing supply

Scotland’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme aims to deliver over 110,000 homes by 2032, with at least two thirds allocated to social rent. Wales aims to deliver 20,000 affordable homes by 2026, prioritising social housing. Whilst neither is doing well against current targets, for various reasons, they both met those which were previously set.  To date, Northern Ireland has committed to delivering at least 2,000 new social homes annually to address its pressing housing need, against an average annual build of 1,400 over the past ten years. Furthermore, the Northern Ireland Executive recently endorsed a cross-departmental housing supply strategy aiming to deliver 100,000 homes by 2039, a third of which will be social homes. These nations demonstrate that ambitious targets, backed by substantial funding, can yield significant results.

In England, affordable housing delivery has consistently fallen behind. According to CIH’s 2025 UK Housing Review, England allocates just 53% of housing investment to affordable housing compared to Scotland’s 99%, Wales’ 78%, and Northern Ireland’s 100%. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s latest poverty report highlights that a lack of affordable housing is a key driver of poverty, with increasing numbers of families facing financial hardship due to rising rents and insufficient housing supply.

To bridge this gap, the UK government should increase grant funding for social housing to levels comparable with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Grant is already much higher in Scotland, covering around 60% of new build costs for housing associations (40% for LAs). In comparison, the average funding per affordable home in England sits at £56,800, while the cost of building an average three-bedroom home typically reaches to over £202,000. Moving beyond reliance on developer contributions would provide a more stable and predictable funding stream, ensuring that affordable housing targets are met regardless of market fluctuations.

3. Addressing decarbonisation and building safety

Scotland’s Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing (EESSH) sets ambitious emissions reduction targets with clear milestones (though there is some way to go to realise them). The Welsh government has made retrofitting of social housing a priority in the new iteration of the Welsh Housing Quality Standard, though levels of government investment fall short of that suggested by the Future Generations Commissioner’s “Homes Fit for the Future” report. The UK government should move ahead with establishing mandatory energy efficiency standards for social housing, enshrining in legislation the target of reaching EPC Band C (or equivalent) by 2030 that most providers are already working towards. It should also invest further in retrofitting to reduce emissions and alleviate fuel poverty.

Building safety is another critical area where lessons can be drawn. Scotland’s comprehensive regulations and funding frameworks have ensured high standards. Meanwhile, in England, financial pressures hinder housing providers’ efforts to remediate safety issues. While the Social Housing Regulation Act marked progress, a unified, well-funded approach to safety and decarbonisation is essential to protect residents and improve living conditions.

4. Innovative approaches to homelessness prevention

Wales has led the way in tackling homelessness through progressive legislation. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 introduced a duty on local authorities to prevent homelessness, focusing on early intervention. Despite initial progress, Wales, like other jurisdictions, faces the same pressures around finding suitable accommodation and responding to the additional demand created by the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis. However, there has been some success with the roll out nationally of the Housing First model since 2018 which has delivered significant results.

Scotland has gone further with its commitment to end homelessness, underpinned by a shift to a Housing First approach, strengthened legal duties and the abolition of priority need. The Scottish Government’s Ending Homelessness Together plan prioritises rapid rehousing and long-term support, ensuring that people experiencing homelessness have access to stable, permanent housing as quickly as possible. Although it was undermined by cuts in 24/25 to the affordable housing supply budget, the budget has been restored for 25/26. Northern Ireland has strengthened its homelessness prevention framework, incorporating long-term housing-led strategies.

The Public Accounts Committee’s recent report on homelessness in England underscores the need for urgent and focussed action, highlighting rising levels of temporary accommodation and the growing number of children affected (though all administrations are struggling with TA and B&B use.) The report highlights systemic issues, including a lack of affordable housing, inconsistent funding, and insufficient local authority capacity, which have left councils struggling to manage the crisis. Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s analysis also links homelessness with deepening poverty, reinforcing the need for stronger preventative measures.

England’s homelessness strategy should adopt similar preventative measures by:

  • Expanding discretionary housing payments to provide immediate financial relief to households at risk of homelessness.
  • Enhancing local authority capacity with resources and training to deliver effective homelessness prevention services.
  • Ensuring consistent, long-term funding for prevention initiatives to reduce reliance on temporary accommodation and tackle root causes of homelessness.
  • Implementing a Housing First approach nationwide.

These steps, combined with a national commitment to increasing affordable housing supply, would shift the focus from crisis management to early intervention. This approach not only reduces long-term costs but also delivers better outcomes for vulnerable households, ensuring fewer families face homelessness.

5. Lessons in governance and funding

Stable funding and coherent governance are critical to successful housing outcomes. Scotland’s commitment to high grant levels per home has enabled consistent delivery of affordable housing. In contrast, fragmented funding streams and short-term policymaking hinder progress in England.

The government should provide multi-year funding settlements for housing programmes and empower local authorities with greater fiscal autonomy, such as through land value capture mechanisms.

Conclusion

The devolved nations have shown that bold, well-funded policies can deliver tangible housing outcomes. By embracing the learning, England can create a sustainable, inclusive housing strategy that addresses the pressing challenges of the next decade.

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

Delivering the council homes we need in the 10-year plan for housing

Lamb Close, Warwick is licensed under CC BY 2.0

How can councils building homes contribute to the Government’s ambition to provide 1.5 million additional homes by the end of the Parliament and fulfil its commitments to getting more affordable homes both through the planning system and the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP)?

The research undertaken by Ben Clifford and I (2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023) shows that Councils are providing homes through a wide range of means and for a range of tenancy/sale models which are not generally recognised in the media. The level of council home delivery in England is regarded as low when viewed through the government’s figures on social housing completions but this hides both the commitment and contribution that councils are currently making and there can be increased delivery if these current initiatives are recognised and supported more proactively. 

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More sustainable funding

Council homes built using the AHP applies to approximately 50% of current local authorities in England with Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA) that did not transfer their stock. To enable this group of councils to increase their delivery through this programme, our research shows that the current barriers to delivery including cost of materials and construction, funding costs, land prices and the levels of subsidy to support delivery are well known and each can be acted upon by government with some initiatives including those already started.

But our research has highlighted other ways in which councils could provide more homes. The first is to give local authorities five -year funding to deliver a social housing programme, as is given to the Mayor of London and Housing Associations, rather than requiring them to seek individual project funding through Homes England. This would enable councils to employ a housing development and delivery teams, improve their skills and enable these teams to work on the wider provision of housing as is the case in the London Boroughs.

The second way to increase council housebuilding is to abolish the HRA. This is not an accounting principle used anywhere else in the world and is peculiar to the UK Treasury. Although some will argue strongly that the HRA provides a ring-fenced fund for housing within councils, its arcane rules operate retained, centralised control. How do other countries provide social rent homes without using an HRA approach? They have the freedom for prudential borrowing against their whole asset base and then use cross subsidy models to provide social rent homes – in some countries by multiple providers. If the Treasury made good its 2007 promise to introduce the International Financial Reporting Standard to local government, then local authorities would be in the same position as housing associations, the private sector and rest of the OECD member states to provide homes.

Thirdly, the subsidies available for social rent homes must be more realistic within the current costs context and also be more flexible in their provision. The government can do more on this by reducing costs of borrowing for homebuilding by councils and enabling those councils still paying off government housing loans taken when historically high interest rates were prevalent, such as the 1990s, to pay these down early if they replace this debt with that used for new home provision.

Embracing alternative models

It is generally assumed that councils without an HRA do not provide housing, but our research found that this was not the case. In 2023, 94% of all councils were supporting housing delivery such as providing land, buildings, funding, partnerships with housing associations and/or developers, rent guarantees, advocacy and other planning requirements that, in some cases, have resulted in higher delivery of affordable homes than those with HRAs.

However, these contributions, also made by councils with HRAs, are hidden because housing associations and developers are shown as delivering this affordable housing with no acknowledgement of council contributions. We need a better way of demonstrating how councils are supporting delivery through other institutions which recognises their role.

Strengthening council housing provision in planning

There are other ways in which council housebuilding can be increased. In the planning reforms recently announced, the government has stated that local authorities will need to demonstrate the need for social rent homes in its plan making evidence. However, once identified, no other parts of the planning system have been changed to enable these needs to be translated into delivery. This starts with the lack of requirements to identify and safeguard enough land for social and affordable housing needs in local plans, continuing the planning assumption that all homes are provided by the private sector, with affordable homes provided as a market residual. Reforms in land acquisition costs recently consulted upon by government could make some difference but at the same time, the land could be more easily made available if identified at this earlier stage.

Another initiative used in Scotland could be extended to England. When homes are negotiated through Section 106 agreements in planning applications, the council has an almost guaranteed right to subsidy for these homes to enter the council’s stock and they are not left empty or negotiated away because no housing association will take on their management.

Institutional reform to prioritise social housebuilding

The role of housing associations collaborating with councils in social housing delivery also needs to be reset. In their tradition and heyday, the main purpose of housing associations was the provision of social and affordable housing. Since they have been able to become developers, the social rent mission has increasingly been overlooked. The Housing Regulator is having to remind them of their responsibilities to keep their existing homes in good repair, as should be required as a consequence of their access to private finance. Further, some housing associations are selling off social rent homes in higher priced areas without replacing them and it is in these areas that the housing need for such homes can be its most acute.

Finally the reforms underway in Homes England and their relationship with the mayors of the new Strategic Authorities should be promising for local authority housebuilding but old cultures die hard. Their focus on regeneration and land acquisition has slowly increased with only a third of the Homes England budget in the last five tears being spent on affordable housing. It is time to increase the percentage of this budget to the AHP and develop land its holds through sales to councils and housebuilders with covenants that require social homes to be built as a condition of the land sale.