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Labour must learn from success in addressing the housing skills shortage

The Government’s ambitious 1.5m homes housing target was widely welcomed by the house-building industry and NHBC. While the Government moves forward to address the barriers posed by the planning system through its Planning and Infrastructure Bill, another pressing issue threatens the target: the industry skills shortage.

Estimates of the number of new construction recruits required vary, with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) placing the figure at 239,000 needed by 2029 to meet demand. Calculations factoring in the additional workforce requirements of constructing the new towns initiative yield larger figures. What we know for certain is that the figure is large and current apprenticeship throughput won’t  produce the additional skilled workers to deliver the numbers needed to reach 1.5m homes.

Growing the construction workforce faces several challenges for both the supply and demand for skills. The 1.5m homes target runs parallel to government commitments on retrofit and national infrastructure, whose workforce is generally drawn from the same pool. At the same time, the make-up of the workforce continues to change with the proportion of workers aged 50 and over increasing from around one in four in 2005 to one in three by 2024.

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While our need for new skilled construction workers increases, firms are struggling to find the skills necessary to meet extant demand, leading to delays and rising costs. The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) State of Trade Survey from H1 2025 found that 61% of respondents reported being  affected by a lack of skilled tradespeople, 49% said that this caused job delays and 23% said it had led to job cancellations. 

Importantly for homebuyers, sub-standard skills and shortages may impact quality. When builders are forced to settle for less skilled tradespeople, there is a heightened risk that quality suffers and the number of defects increase.

Data compiled in the NHBC Foundation’s recent report Maintaining quality in the design and construction of 1.5m homes illustrates the historic relationship between the volume of home completions and customer satisfaction, with satisfaction tending to decrease as volume increases. Ensuring an adequate supply of skills will be crucial in breaking that trend.

Unfortunately, the existing skills system fails to deliver the numbers necessary to meet that need. According to Department of Education data, approximately 24,000 construction apprenticeships were started in England in the most recent year.  However, once you account for achievement rates, only around half of these apprentices complete their courses.

Perceptions of construction are often cited as the cause for the struggling workforce but 24,000 apprenticeship starts is a sizeable number. We need to look more closely at why these apprentices are dropping out of their courses, failing to meet the required standard or deciding not to enter the industry at the end of their course.

At NHBC we believe that we have managed to square that circle. In 2020, we launched our first training hub in Tamworth, initially focusing on bricklaying Level 2 qualifications. This training hub took a unique approach to construction training, guided by the needs of house builders. The hub mimics real site conditions, consisting of an open space with a large slab of concrete, covered only by a canopy and surrounded by cabins with teaching rooms and a canteen facility.

Apprentices begin their learning with a five-week block at the hub, as opposed to the usual day release, starting and finishing at the times they would on a real site. They are required to wear the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) they would on a construction site and follow the same safety protocols. This differs from traditional apprenticeships, where traditional providers (understandably) are restricted by the size of their estate.

Our hubs do not have the same restrictions. The Tamworth hub was set up on land on an existing Redrow development as it was being constructed. The ‘pop-up’ nature of the hubs allows us to choose locations that replicate the site experience as closely as possible.

After spending weeks learning essential skills, apprentices go on site for ten weeks with the ability to confidently lay bricks and contribute from day one. This allows them to build relationships, take on responsibility and makes an apprentice a more attractive option for employers.

This approach has yielded exciting results. Our completion rate is an industry-leading 80-90%, with the majority of our apprentices continuing to work with their employers. If these figures were replicated across the industry thousands more skilled tradespeople would be entering the construction sector every year.

NHBC’s initial success at Tamworth prompted the opening of an additional three hubs in Cambridge, Newcastle and Hull.

NHBC is a non-profit distributing company whose core purpose is to raise standards in house building. This has enabled us to reinvest £100m towards the creation of 12 larger multi-skill hubs, each two thirds of the size of a football pitch and offering broader trades needed within the local area such as bricklaying, groundwork and site carpentry, with timber fame erection planned for later hubs. Once all 12 hubs are open, we expect to have capacity for 3,000 apprentice starts every year.

Yet challenges persist; the industry would benefit greatly from a more flexible growth and skills levy and small employers still struggle to engage with the skills system, but the hub model has potential to be replicated across a swathe of trades and revolutionise construction skills.

Our team stands ready to share our expertise with any organisation wishing to replicate our success.

David Campbell is the Chief Operating Officer of NHBC, the UK’s largest new homes warranty and insurance provider. NHBC is a non-profit distributing company whose core purpose is to raise standards in house-building.

You can hear more from David Campbell at Labour Housing Group’s fringe at Labour Party Conference in partnership with NHBC: How can the Labour Government solve the housing skills shortage? (Monday 29th: 17:00 – 18:00)

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Breaking the Cycle: The route out of crisis, and towards a country free from homelessness

In my role with Homeless Link, I am fortunate enough to visit homelessness support and prevention services all over the country.  And each visit reinforces two twin beliefs.

Firstly, our country faces a homelessness emergency.

Secondly – but just as important – homelessness organisations (many of them amongst the  750+ Homeless Link members), with tens of thousands of committed and skilled staff, have the necessary skills and ability to turn the tide and build a country without homelessness.

The opportunity we need to seize now

The government is right now preparing to publish a new Homelessness Strategy. This needs to deliver:

  • An urgent response worthy of the scale of homelessness emergency.
  • An ambitious, resourced plan to deliver on that vision of a country without homelessness.

This is not a case of a sticking plaster now and a 10-year plan later. These dual ambitions are two sides of the same coin. A long-term plan can only succeed if the immediate crisis is effectively relieved. And the same interventions that the long-term plan requires are critical to securing homes for those facing homelessness right now.

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The emergency we’re facing

The scale of this crisis is difficult to overstate. Year-after-year, quarter-after-quarter unwanted new records are set as homelessness of all kinds spirals out of control. It is shameful that more than 130,000 households are currently living in temporary accommodation including just under 170,000 children.

At the same time, homelessness support services are being forced to close their doors due to financial pressures. There’s been a 43% reduction in the number of bedspaces in England since 2008. This concurrence is no coincidence

Years of austerity have unquestionably fuelled this cycle of crisis. The funding model for homelessness services has degraded into a patchwork of inefficient and bureaucratic grants. While those grant levels have failed to keep pace with inflation and years of rising demand.

None of this will have come as a surprise to the Labour Government. In opposition Angela Rayner rightly stated that current homelessness levels were “a national disgrace.”

But the numbers don’t lie and one year into a Labour Government homelessness continues to rise. Behind each of those numbers is an incredibly difficult situation for a real person and their family.

Progress has been made

That said, the Labour Government has introduced some welcome measures. The creation of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Homelessness is valuable recognition of the importance of cross-government working. The Renter’s Rights Bill will introduce new securities for tenants. And the repeal of the Vagrancy Act will be a major moment in the history of the state’s attitudes to homelessness.

But whether I’m in London, Bristol, Manchester, Sheffield or Doncaster, too often the message I hear from frontline homelessness support workers is “nothing much has changed.”

A real sea-change in approach is needed. More of the same will simply deliver more of the same results: rising homelessness, rising government spending and years of pain for people denied a safe and secure home.

The Homelessness Strategy can kick start the change we need to see

That the promised new Strategy has cross-departmental authorship is welcome. But more important is to bake in true cross-departmental accountability. For real change we need to see every arm of Government embrace ending homelessness as core to their mission.

This means a central, permanent ending homelessness taskforce to coordinate cross-departmental efforts. It means departments putting their money where their mouth is. And it means impact assessments on how all new policies could affect homelessness levels.

Housing, health, welfare, employment, immigration and more – every department has a part to play, but we particularly need strong leadership from the Treasury to fix the failed funding system that has caused the decline in homelessness service capacity since 2008.

The costs as well as causes of homelessness are cross-departmental. But those costs are simply not tracked. There’s no accurate figure for the amount paid in Enhanced Housing Benefit. The financial cost to the health service of homelessness is estimated to be huge, but potential savings to the NHS if homelessness was reduced are never factored into budget decisions.

We’re long overdue a systematic review of all spending and the true cost of homelessness. Once this is completed, a single ringfenced budget designed to prevent and end homelessness for good should be created. We’ll then be in a much better position to take informed, cost-effective and holistic decisions on homelessness policy.

Get this right, and we can break the cycle

These two measures – serious leadership on funding reform from the Treasury and genuine cross departmental accountability – can unlock the solutions to deliver on the twin goals I mentioned at the beginning of this article: ending the homelessness emergency and laying the foundations for a country free from homelessness.

With a full understanding of homelessness costs, we would avoid false economy cuts. Take Housing First for example – a proven effective – and cost-effective – intervention that supports people to exit rough sleeping and secure a long-term home. It is exactly the sort of intervention we should be championing and expanding. But due to a funding model that rewards short-termism, Housing First spaces are currently in decline.

And the most cost-effective way to manage homelessness is to prevent it happening in the first place. More importantly of course, this is also the best outcome for the person involved.

Through more cross-departmental accountability, we can make early interventions that prevent homelessness the norm across all public services: whether in schools, job centres or local health services.

Joined-up working is not only important at a Ministerial level of course. Some of the most effective cross-departmental working would be between local health and social care teams and local authority teams working on homelessness.

In Exeter and Eastbourne I’ve seen really successful examples of this – what a scandal that they are both facing funding cliff edges and risk of closure next March!

Instead these holistic models of service delivery should be supported, encouraged and securely and adequately resourced by central government. This is what we are asking this government – and I mean all relevant Ministers in this government – to deliver.

The next steps on the journey to a country free from homelessness

Homeless Link will be continuing our Breaking the Cycle campaign over the coming weeks and months.

If you are at Labour Party Conference you can find out more by joining the Labour Housing Group Fringe Event we are sponsoring – ‘Ending Single Homelessness under Labour.’ You can also sign-up to get our regular News and Updates emails.

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Blog Post Class of 2024

Tackling the Housing Crisis: How the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unlock Britain’s potential

Places and people are why I entered politics. When I decided to run for council leader three years after I first entered local politics, after a decade of  Conservative government and cuts to local authorities, I campaigned on a platform of reversing the decline and stagnant growth my local area faced. Regeneration and planning became a cornerstone of my ambition from leading council-led regeneration, which included thousands of genuinely affordable homes, to progressing a new Local Plan that designated space for 30,000 new homes alongside new schools, GP surgeries and parks.

Importantly, part of the Local Plan that I led on included re-designating green belt land for housing. Far from lush, biodiverse fields, this green belt was truly grey belt land – garden centres and golf courses right next to train stations – perfect for desperately-needed family-sized, affordable homes. The local Conservatives campaigned against the project. Their anti-growth sentiment was also reflected at a national level by their colleagues in government, who repeatedly failed to address the housing crisis and to deliver vital infrastructure projects during their 14-year tenure.

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As the newly elected Member of Parliament for Barking, I am constantly reminded of the human cost of the Conservative’s failure to tackle the housing crisis. Every week, I meet constituents who share with me their personal and desperate stories about overcrowding, years spent in temporary accommodation, poor-quality housing, and sky-high rents.

Barking has a rich history founded in its industrial heritage – including the former Barking Power Station –  and as home to the UK’s largest council estate built after the First World War as part of the Government’s ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’ scheme.

That legacy of pioneering council housing continues today. Inside Housing reports that Barking & Dagenham Council tops the national list of council housebuilders. Between 2023-2024 the local authority built 879 homes, with a further 1,901 set to be completed in the next five years. They have also just adopted a new Local Plan, with the vision to construct 50,000 new homes by 2037, so that my constituency can remain a place where working Londoners can raise their families in secure and decent homes. Labour locally and nationally is on a mission to tackle the housing crisis at its root, by increasing supply, but too often, support for new homes is a national patchwork. For every council championing new homes, there are others where the political culture is centred around blocking them.

I know from my own time as a councillor that resilient local politicians can make or break a housing project. MPs and Councillors are good at engaging with residents – after all, we run elections and win them – but not all planning committees are robust or resilient enough to take on anti-developer campaigns, even when it’s clear that an area is in desperate need of investment and regeneration. Equally, I’ve seen too many examples of councils too anxious to have an area-wide conversation about housing by developing an adequate Local Plan, and instead rely on unplanned development. Over 60% of local authorities do not have an up-to-date Local Plan – the appropriate vehicle to set out a vision for new housing in an area.

That’s why I was pleased to sit on the Bill Committee for the Labour Government’s new Planning and Infrastructure Bill which – alongside changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) last year – represents the biggest reform to housebuilding and planning in a generation. It introduces major reforms to the Town and Country Planning Act, compulsory purchase rules and the current infrastructure regime while introducing a Nature Restoration Fund to facilitate Environmental Delivery Plans. Changes to legislation effecting development corporations will expand the development of New Towns. The Olympic Park, the regeneration of Canary Wharf and the Docklands are just some examples of successful projects led by development corporations that have transformed parts of East London into economic hubs, now home to thousands of families.

The Bill also includes measures to modernise planning committees, empowering local leaders to make regeneration schemes and ambitious Local Plans become the norm, not the exception.

The over-use of council planning committees can slow down decision-making and result in councils losing appeal when committees have refused applications against the recommendations of their officers, or even when development was previously agreed in a Local Plan. The voices of people who need housing go unheard in debates. New standardised delegation schemes will ensure the right decisions are being made by planning officers, using a local authorities’ Local Plans as the basis for decisions, with more significant applications continuing to be made by planning committees.

Next, investment in infrastructure is essential to bring forward larger sites and to address residents’ concerns. In my own constituency of Barking, I have witnessed these challenges firsthand. Barking Riverside is a development on the Thames Estuary that includes over 10,000 new homes. It has a new overground station, industrial sites, commercial businesses, community centres and several schools. However, the area does not have a GP surgery – something I am campaigning on today. Adequate Infrastructure Delivery Plans alongside Local Plans will help councillors hold developers to account. 

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill puts infrastructure at the heart of development. Currently, the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime, used to approve most major infrastructure projects, has failed to deliver critical infrastructure on time. The National Infrastructure Commission reports that decisions for major projects now take over four years compared to two and a half years in 2010. 

The Government’s new Bill removes the statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage for NSIP applications. The changes will mean that delays are reduced, and essential infrastructure is consented to faster. That will save up to 12 months from the pre-application stage and millions, if not billions, of pounds. It could make the difference between whether an infrastructure proposal is viable or not, and between whether homes are built in an area or not. Crucially, communities will still get a chance to oppose new projects as part of the post-submission stage.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill maintains the existing legal and policy protections that ensure that irreplaceable ancient woods and trees are protected, while also delivering a more strategic approach to improve the environment. The introduction of a Nature Restoration Fund will facilitate the implementation of Environmental Delivery Plans (EDP), this new holistic approach will move away from the single development assessment model and put forward conservation measures in consultation with Natural England, and other key stakeholders, like our British farmers across the country, the reforms will maximise environmental protection and improve public access to green space.  

Ultimately, if a Government is serious about tackling the housing crisis, then this country must get building. Much of the debate on the Government’s planning changes has focused on objections based on environmental concerns. But the truth is, this landmark Bill will streamline and accelerate the delivery of 1.5 million homes, that are so desperately needed. It will help reverse the decline and stagnation I first stood against as a council leader, set out a strategic approach to mitigate the environmental impact of new homes, and ensure places and people benefit from Labour’s Plan for Change.  

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

A housing and climate win-win is available but is it on the government’s radar?

[The benefits of timber framed homes are becoming more apparent. Source: Donaldson Offsite Timber Systems]

As the Labour government heads into its second year a niggling worry is beginning to grow. To date no senior Labour figure has clearly and publicly articulated that the housing and climate crises are intertwined.

With 40 per cent of global climate emissions sourced from the built environment, the government needs to make it clear that it is alert to the danger that building 1.5 million new homes in the traditional way could make it impossible for the UK to reach net zero by 2050.

The good news is that the exact opposite is also possible: the completion of every desperately needed new home using different materials could also help to address positively the climate crisis.

Why is the built environment such a major cause of the climate crisis? Concrete, steel, bricks and breeze blocks can only be manufactured using large amounts of energy to generate heat, energy which is still predominately sourced from the burning of fossil fuels.

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Concrete is an acute problem because, as well as the energy needed, the manufacturing process of extracting the lime from the limestone triggers a chemical reaction that releases CO2 into the atmosphere. In fact concrete is responsible for a staggering eight per cent of total global carbon emissions[2]. Steel is almost as problematic but is partly redeemed by its high recycling rates. Currently virtually everything we build has an unnecessarily large amount of embodied carbon i.e. our new buildings come with large carbon footprints.

The government, or at least parts of it, is aware of this significant climate problem hence the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government commissioned a recently published external report The practical, technical and economic impacts of measuring and reducing embodied carbon in new buildings.[3]

It is not just the embodied carbon in a new build that is a climate problem. CO2 emissions continue after construction because buildings typically need to be heated. Again, this is mainly done using energy sourced from fossil fuels. In this case the solution is: much better insulation.  

Is there then a material out there that we could use as a substitute for concrete, steel, brick and block? Yes: timber! Scotland, Canada, the USA and the Nordic countries build 80 per cent of their family homes with timber frames. But England builds less than 20 per cent. Does it matter? Yes. Timber’s carbon footprint is considerably lower than most construction materials, plus it also stores carbon – a virtue that will be of increasing importance in achieving net zero.

Recent developments with a material known as engineered timber or mass timber mean that it is now possible to build at height and at scale with timber in urban settings. Labour-led Hackney Council has the largest concentration of large engineered timber buildings in the world – including flats, offices, a cinema and a church.

Professor Michael Ramage of the University of Cambridge calculated that erecting a 300-square-metre, four-storey student residence in wood generated only 126 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If it had been made with concrete the tally would have risen to 310 tonnes. If steel had been used emissions would have topped 498 tonnes. Indeed the wood building can be viewed as ‘carbon negative’ as there is the equivalent of 540 tonnes of CO2 stored in the timber, resulting in a long-term removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.[4]

A switch to building more with wood rightly raises questions around the supply of sustainable timber. Reassurance here is provided by Sir David Attenborough speaking in a WWF video on forests in 2019.[5]

“… our growing global population will need to use more wood and that could be a good thing. Wood is an extraordinary renewable resource and taking it from well managed sources benefits forests and the planet. But on their own natural forests can’t provide all the wood we need so we also have to farm trees just like we do other crops and create a new generation of plantations.”

It’s these new plantations or new commercial forests that the government needs to ensure are planted. Currently the UK has amongst the lowest levels of forest cover in Europe. However we do have land on which we could plant new trees especially in the uplands.

Switching to more timber in construction would also store significantly more carbon. So much so that initial calculations point to carbon stored in timber in the built environment in future being able to match the government’s proposed Carbon Capture and Storage scheme under the North Sea and Irish Sea i.e. 8.5 Mt CO2e.[6] [7]

How then could the government speed up the use of timber in construction to the benefit of the climate?

1. Implement the Environmental Audit Committee’s 2022 proposal to legislate for mandatory whole-life carbon assessment of all new buildings, including the amount of stored carbon, as part of the planning permission process.[8]

2. Set maximum standards for the carbon footprints of new builds and their energy use which can then be tightened over time as we aim for net zero in 2050.

3. Incentivise the use of nature-based materials such as timber in construction, including insulation, in part by recognising that the storage of carbon in buildings is a climate benefit.

4. Facilitate education about the use of nature-based materials across the whole of the construction-value chain.

5. Increase the home-grown sustainable wood supply by increasing commercial forest planting.

6. Implement the Timber in Construction Roadmap 2025 which includes working with industry and academia to identify opportunities for and barriers to the use of timber in retrofit and promote best practice and innovation by 2027.[9]

Labour is right to state that there is no magic money tree. There is however – when it comes to tackling climate breakdown – a magic sustainable timber tree. This Labour government could deliver the homes the country desperately needs and at the same time could turn the built environment into a carbon sink rather than a carbon emitter. To do so would be a win-win for Labour, the country and the climate – time for Rayner and Miliband to hold a joint press conference.

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Will the Renters’ Rights Bill end the temporary accommodation crisis?

The number of people trapped living in temporary accommodation is a national scandal.

Temporary accommodation has contributed to the deaths of 74 children in the last five years, according to figures from the National Child Mortality Database. Nearly 170,000 children, akin to the population of Oxford, are currently growing up in homes characterised by issues like overcrowding, damp and mould. Meanwhile, it’s temporary in name only. The average time a household with children spends living in temporary accommodation is now more than five years.

At the same time, providing it is crippling local authority finances, with related council spending increasing by 97% in the past five years.

The Labour Government have been in power for over a year now, but the crisis shows no signs of abating. The latest Statutory Homelessness Statistics showed the number of households in temporary accommodation rose by 12% in January to March, when compared to the same period the previous year.

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Politicians and renters alike will hope that the Renters’ Rights Bill could be one tool to bring down the number of people trapped in temporary accommodation. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner even said as much during the Second Reading debate for the Bill. The Bill passed through the House of Lords on 21st July and will likely receive Royal Assent in the Autumn.

There is some truth to this claim. According to analysis from Shelter, someone approaches a local authority as threatened with homelessness due to a ‘no fault’ Section 21 eviction every 21 minutes. The long-awaited outlawing of Section 21 will therefore help turn off the tap from private renting to temporary accommodation somewhat, as will the doubling of notice periods to four months when people are evicted.

However, the glaring gap in the Bill is the lack of any measures to reduce the soaring cost of renting. Landlords will still be able to use sudden rent hikes as an economic eviction to price their tenant out of the home.

Recent polling from the Renters’ Reform Coalition found more than a third of renters would be forced to move by a rent increase of £110 per month. But analysis by the campaign group suggests the average rent increase awarded to landlords at first-tier rent tribunals, the service through which renters challenge rent increases, is more than double this at over £240 per month.

The Government’s housebuilding targets are welcome, but, even with all the political will in the world, it will take years for people to see their impact. If we think of the temporary accommodation issue as an overflowing bath, the numbers of households are only going to significantly reduce if the Government finds a way to pull out the plug.

Right now, it is the soaring cost of private rents that is preventing people from moving on from temporary accommodation. According to Zoopla, the average monthly cost of private rents has risen by £221 in the last three years alone. Meanwhile, analysis from Crisis found just 2.5% of private rented properties are affordable for people claiming benefits.

Introducing a commonsense limit on how much landlords can raise the rent would help slam the brakes on the cost of renting, giving people on low incomes the breathing space needed to find a home.

Alongside this, the Government must unfreeze the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate, which governs how much housing benefit people can receive. The Work and Pensions Committee, a cross-party group of MPs scrutinising this area, recommended last year that “The Government should make a commitment to uprate annually Local Housing Allowance so that it retains its value at the 30th percentile of rents”.

This report and that recommendation was written and produced when Sir Stephen Timms was chairing the committee. Timms has since gone on to become Minister for Social Security. Giving evidence in Parliament last month, I suggested that the committee could ask the Minister what has changed.

Keeping LHA frozen only shifts the cost elsewhere. The cost of providing temporary accommodation was recently described by Labour MP and chair of the Housing Committee Florence Eshalomi as trapping councils in a “straight jacket”, preventing them from focusing on longer-term solutions. Meanwhile, landlords who provide temporary accommodation can be the worst of all, renting out awful properties and profiteering off the desperation of local councils.

Even with the Renters’ Rights Bill all but finished, there are other opportunities for the government to take action. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will start the parliamentary process in the Autumn. Within it, the government should include powers for Mayors to introduce a limit on rent rises in their areas. This is something Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for in the past and is similar to the approach the SNP is taking in Scotland. While the Treasury must unfreeze LHA in the upcoming Autumn Budget.

The Renters’ Rights Bill is a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between tenants and landlords. But if the government doesn’t use that momentum to reduce the cost of renting, the temporary accommodation crisis will sadly be a permanent fixture in our society.

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Speeding Up With Certainty

If there is one theme to Britain’s planning woes, it is a system that is too special for its own good. From discretionary approvals to bespoke Section 106 agreements, the UK does not have a unitary planning process so much as a separate one for each development. The result is uncertainty at every stage for everyone, producing a system that consistently fails to supply enough homes.

The government has begun the process of turning the ship around. In December 2024, changes to the NPPF laid the groundwork for more construction on the green belt. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has followed up by releasing six working papers on issues like brownfield land and planning committees, floating policy proposals for each and asking for feedback.

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One of these working papers considers the critical issue of speeding up construction on sites with planning permission. While often overshadowed by the paucity of planning permissions, the failure to convert permissions into completed developments has risen up the agenda in recent years. Analysis cited in a report from planning consultancy Lichfields concluded that an incredible 30 to 40 per cent of residential planning permissions expire. The Letwin Review set up to consider the same issue found that the median build out period on selected large sites was 15.5 years.

The working paper on speeding up construction proposes a number of fixes, including giving councils greater powers of compulsory purchase and the right to levy a delayed homes penalty on tardy developments. The paper suggests limiting the application of these powers to sites over a certain threshold, with 500 homes mooted as a possible minimum. The penalty would also only apply “where there is evidence of a developer falling substantially behind a build out schedule”.

While these caveats sound sensible in theory, they raise the distinct prospect of repeating the mistakes of the past. This threat is particularly present with the delayed homes penalty. Before any implementation, the government would need to select a threshold, set a standard for evidence of delay and define what it would mean for a project to fall “substantially behind” schedule. The inevitable result would be years of legal uncertainty, compounding the issue at the heart of our housing crisis.

All of this complexity can be avoided. If the government is looking for a simple means of holding developers to agreed timelines, they need look no further than a typical construction contract. As standard, these agreements include a liquidated damages provision requiring the contractor to pay a per diem charge for late delivery, applied from the first day of delay past a timeline agreed at the outset of works.

The advantages of adopting this approach are manifold. While inventing a new legal framework would introduce years of uncertainty, relying on this system taps into a body of law that is already well-established. A liquidated damages clause also has the advantage of operating regardless of the project size. Indeed, it appears as standard in the most commonly used contract for construction projects worth less than £500,000. If, on the other hand, the delayed homes penalty were only applied above a certain threshold, the current problems of delay would by definition be left in place for any development below that minimum size. To make matters worse, there would be a cliff-edge effect where any business considering a development around the dividing line would be incentivised to reduce the size of the development to just below the threshold in order to avoid the prospect of a penalty.

The proposed rules for enhanced compulsory purchase and a delayed homes penalty are still at consultation phase, with plenty of opportunity for improvement. In publishing the working papers and making many changes besides, the government deserves praise for moving quickly to correct the accumulated errors from decades of failed policy. But to ensure that this Parliament is remembered as the turning point in that trajectory, it is vital that new policies like a delayed homes penalty are designed in ways that make our planning system more predictable rather than less.

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Beyond the Toolkit: A Coherent Vision for Community-Led Housing in Labour’s Strategy

Image by Barefoot Architects/Rebecca Noakes Photography

“Community-led housing is arguably one of the UK’s greatest housing superpowers you’ve never heard of. It delivers homes people want to live in – well-designed, affordable, rooted in community. It’s time to better understand and support it, to get it to scale.”

Earlier this year, my colleague Tom Chance outlined a ten-year plan to grow community-led housing (CLH) in Red Brick. His call to reform planning and unlock funding is part of our collective strategy and remains crucial. But if we want to unleash CLH’s full potential, we must go further.

What is missing is a clear, coherent vision—one that can win hearts and minds. Too few in government or housing policy understand what CLH actually is. Some may have heard of co-operatives, Community Land Trusts (CLTs), or cohousing—but rarely all three, or how they interconnect. This lack of awareness fragments support and risks missing the real opportunity.

Of course, it is on us in the CLH movement to provide that clarity. This article aims to help by offering CLH as a joined-up, democratic alternative. CLH is not about rejecting the private or public sector—it is about adding much-needed diversity to a housing system that has shown it can become speculative and centralised, distanced from the communities it serves. CLH offers another way—rooted in local ownership, long-term thinking, and real citizen participation.

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CLH: Fragmented or Force for Good?

At first glance, CLH may seem fragmented. But look closer, and a strong, coherent movement emerges—grounded in shared values of participation, stewardship, and community.

  • Co-operatives are about democratic control. Residents collectively own and manage their homes, with each member holding a share and a voice. Rooted in working-class struggles, they create stable, empowered communities.
  • CLTs acquire land and hold it in trust for long-term local benefit. By separating land from property ownership, they keep homes affordable and shielded from speculation.
  • Cohousing brings people together. With private homes and shared spaces, it fosters connection, mutual support, and neighbourhoods designed for real social interaction.

These models are not isolated options—they are complementary. Many successful projects combine them: a cohousing group may build on CLT-held land and be governed as a co-op. This is not just a toolkit—it is a movement challenging conventional housing delivery.

The differences are real but not divisive. They all represent forms of mutuality. The belief homes should be shaped by those who live in them, their local communities, often in partnership with the housing industry.

Three Pillars, One Movement

CLH models differ in form, but are united by three core principles:

  1. Democracy
    Co-operatives return power to residents, replacing landlordism with collective self-management.
  2. Stewardship
    CLTs take land out of the speculative market, holding it in trust to serve community needs for generations.
  3. Connection
    Cohousing puts relationships at the centre—tackling loneliness, supporting ageing in place, and reducing pressure on public services.

Where these principles overlap, their impact multiplies. Together, they offer a grounded, scalable alternative to “business as usual.”

The Potential to Integrate Delivery in Action

Blending these models strengthens community-led housing by combining their unique strengths:

  • Housing co-ops thrive when paired with long-term land stewardship and a strong community culture — ensuring both security and solidarity.
  • Community Land Trusts are most effective when resident engagement and sociable design are central — helping them stay rooted in lived community, not just governance.
  • Cohousing is enriched by cooperative principles and land held in trust — making it more accessible, resilient, and affordable over time.

When brought together, these approaches complement one another to build truly inclusive, enduring, and community-anchored housing.

A Unified Model of Community Led Housing

Where they overlap, their strengths reinforce each other:

Together, they offer a holistic response to today’s housing challenges – from affordability and ageing to climate targets and loneliness. This is not just placemaking. It is democracy in action.

What is Already Working

CLH is growing—and evolving. Once citizens succeed with one development they often move onto becoming involved in more.

  • Lancaster Cohousing (Forgebank): A 41-home eco-community redeveloping a brownfield site. Residents co-founded a CLT and are now launching a senior cohousing initiative. They own a small forest and hydro-electric energy production as well as a local workspace.
  • Lowfield Green Housing Co-op (York): 19 low-carbon homes with cohousing-inspired design. Land stewarded by a CLT and enabled by community shares and council support.
  • Bridport Cohousing CLT (Hazelmead): 53 affordable homes, developed in partnership with a housing association and local council. Includes housing for hospital staff.

Across the UK, there are now 300+ CLTs, 700 co-ops and 65 cohousing groups—but this remains small-scale compared to European neighbours. In Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, sustained policy support has helped make such models mainstream.

The Policy Opportunity

CLH aligns squarely with Labour’s goals:

  • Boosting affordable supply
  • Supporting SMEs
  • Cutting emissions through community-led sustainability
  • Rebuilding trust in planning and housing delivery

To realise this potential, CLH needs targeted support:

  • A national CLH strategy embedded in housing policy
  • Patient capital to de-risk early-stage development
  • Access to small/medium public land sites
  • Planning reform to prioritise community-led and SME-led delivery
  • A strategic role for CLH in New Towns and major developments

This is not just about homes—it is about housing as democratic infrastructure.

Conclusion: Housing as Democratic Infrastructure

This is not just placemaking. It is a new politics of housing.

CLH offers a vision for homes people want to live in: affordable, sustainable, and embedded in community. It enables residents to co-create places that work for them, not just investors.

In a time of housing crisis and political disaffection, CLH is more than a delivery model. It’s a way to rebuild faith in the idea that society can work for everyone.

Labour has a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Let’s not miss it.

owen@cohousing.org.uk

Categories
Blog Post

Back to the Future

Bristol (Hartcliffe) from Dundry Hill by stevekeirstu is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

As part of Rachel Reeves’ Spending Review the Government announced 25 trailblazer neighbourhoods which will receive up to £20 million of ten years. One of the areas named was Hartcliffe in Bristol. It is an area I know well: I grew up there, lived there for over 30 years and represented it as a councillor for 11 years. The day before the trailblazer announcement, I received a national award for a book charting the early history of the estate, “Hartcliffe Betrayed” which I believe has lessons which the current Government could learn from.

Built in the 1950s and 60s, Hartcliffe was part of the wave of post war housebuilding which is often cited when people talk about the golden age of government achieving over 300,000 homes per year, much of it council housing. Estates sprung up across the country, and our towns and cities expanded to accommodate the new growth. However, mistakes were made: urban extensions were often distant from facilities, poorly served by public transport, with local shops more expensive than the city centre retail they replaced. To speed up development, new forms of concrete and steel construction were employed and there was a switch from building houses to high rise flats to hit the targets. In the case of Hartcliffe ambitious plans for a wide range of community services were shelved or delayed, roads links were downgraded and housing standards compromised.

Hartcliffe was an urban extension planned as a new town. If it had been a new town, it would have been treated far better, as they were much better served by infrastructure, facilities, and even local democratic institutions.

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 Today Hartcliffe is a community struggling because of economic expediency and chasing housing numbers at the expense of everything else. In recent decades, housing policy has not helped as the council housing which dominates the area is prioritised for the most desperate and marginalised, ensuring that the poverty statistics deepen each time they are measured. Clearly it would not have been allocated funds by the Government if that was not the case.

Following a piece of research conducted before the Second World War by Bristol University and published after, it contained a set of principles which could be applied to urban extensions. Six in total, four were very specific about housing finance of the time, however the remaining four still stand up to scrutiny 80 years later. These were:

  1. “The need for less segregation of estates from the life of the city as a whole”. The main recommendation is to have affordable, effective public transport, giving residents easy access to all that a city has to offer. It also suggests areas should be planned to be as economically and socially self-sufficient as possible with facilities and employment incorporated from the beginning.
  2. “The need for less isolation of the poorer section of the population on the estates.” This emphasises the need for a mix of people with different incomes and not recreating ‘council estates.’ Some on the left argue that all housing should be social housing. Given allocation policies and the demand for housing this would be self-defeating and would reinforce area based stigma.
  3. “The need for more flexibility in fixing densities on new estates.” The garden city model much used in the 30s and 50s is often seen as beyond reproach, however it leads to low densities which can undermine the social and commercial economies meaning that often people are too far from services to use them. Higher densities concentrated on ‘town centres’ should be encouraged.
  4. “The need to encourage self-government on the estates.” New towns tended to have town councils, urban extensions often find their governance centred far away. As we face further local government reorganisation and the combining of county and district councils together, the case for urban parish councils or the equivalent to give communities more control over local resources and decision making becomes stronger.

Too often we ignore the lessons of the past, but now that we are planning for the largest house building programme of a generation maybe it is time to dust off research of the last century to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of those years.

Categories
Blog Post Class of 2024

Ending rough sleeping can be achieved under Labour

In March, over 7,000 people were sleeping rough in England. It is a national scandal and one that Labour is determined to fix.

When I became Deputy Leader of Milton Keynes City Council, it was known as a “city of tents”, with those without a place to stay setting up camps in our city centre, beneath our underpasses, and next to our train station.

Rough sleepers had become a political football for a Conservative Party seeking to divide and degrade. Suella Braverman, as Home Secretary, claimed that living from a tent was a “lifestyle choice”, and the national number of people sleeping rough began to tick up once again. Britain stood on the precipice of a homelessness crisis, and the government didn’t just ignore it – they demonised the most vulnerable in our society.

Yet, as a national crisis brewed, things looked very different in Milton Keynes. With my background in homelessness, I alongside colleagues across the council set about changing the situation in Milton Keynes by first recognising that it is at its heart a people not a housing issue. Rough sleepers are often the product of being let down by their parents, by the system or by the state.

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The tents were just a symptom of a deeper issue, of people trying to cope with their past and current trauma by making sometimes self-destructive decisions as a way to survive. This explains the over representation of people who grew up in care, with domestic and sexual abuse and who have been in prison. They had often been repeatedly failed by the fragmentation of support and passing between services and charities.

It was only by designing the system around the people who needed it, can we create a system where leaving the streets can become a reality for them. The first step was to consolidate the Milton Keynes homelessness services under one roof. At the Old Bus Station, the local council established a new shelter for rough sleepers. It implemented a no second night out rule effectively running SWEP all year round. The emergency beds we offered were important, but not as vital as the medical services, including a GP and addiction services, probation support and other public sector support services that were available on the ground floor. Local charities were encouraged and enabled to provide services directly at the bus shelter, dishing out hot meals, befriending and providing access to laundry equipment.

That is not to say that there are no more rough sleepers in Milton Keynes. For those who do not want to engage or accept a place at the shelter, every morning council officers check on them, building the rapport that will encourage them to engage. People with a history of rough sleeping may not be successful on their first, second or even third attempt, but I made sure that support was more widely available in Milton Keynes.

Since being elected last July, this Government has been committed to supporting homeless people, not attacking them. The Government has doubled our emergency homelessness funding to £60 million as an immediate support for councils to keep people in their homes. This is in addition to the £1 billion already committed this year to tackle the root causes of homelessness, including the largest ever investment in preventative services, so we can put in place long-lasting solutions, not just sticking plasters, to end this crisis.

The Chancellor has also outlined the biggest investment into social housing, including council houses, for a generation in her Spending Review, with £39bn being allocated to providing the housing families deserve. The Renters’ Rights Bill progressing through Parliament will finally ban no-fault evictions, stopping tenants founding themselves without anywhere to go unexpectedly – and our manifesto commitment to fight for the “hidden homeless”, who get by each night through sofa-surfing, will act further to intervene on the path of homelessness before it leads to a night alone on the streets.

Nothing underlines our commitment to making tackling homelessness a top priority than our decision to finally scrap the unfair Vagrancy Act, an archaic and outdated law that criminalises those with nowhere else to go. Within Parliament, a cross-departmental group has been established by the government to liaise with my colleagues on the backbenches who have lived experience with tackling homelessness, or experience on the streets, with ministers and Secretaries of State consulting directly with us and taking on board our feedback for the upcoming governmental Rough Sleeping Strategy. Initiatives from departments all across government are acting to support those who need it most, with our reforms to job centres, with a record investment into back-to-work support, helping across society, including those with experience rough sleeping. I am so proud to say that it has all gone a bit Milton Keynes – the Government is focused and committed to tackling the causes of homelessness, and this is only the start. Whilst the previous government had laid down a muddled path towards a Tent Nation, we’re fighting back and treating everybody with the humanity and respect that everybody deserves. That shouldn’t be political – it is what we owe everybody in society.

The impact of these changes almost goes without saying. Many of my colleagues have lived experience of sleeping rough, and they know the difference support makes. The amount of potential being squandered by our failure to support homeless communities is a national scandal, and these changes will allow us to support people off the streets and into the professional life where they can offer so much to so many. An ounce of moral fibre is all it takes to compel you to tackle homelessness, but as we make growth our priority, a workforce fulfilling their true potential – not letting it lie dormant in hostels and underpasses – will help us build a better, more decent Britain.

There’s always further to go. We know that the frontline of supporting homeless people is local government, and if an authority is committed to supporting their rough sleepers, they can achieve tremendous things – just ask Milton Keynes. With a supportive framework from Westminster, local authorities can create a seamless web of support that matches the needs in their place.

Everywhere should be a bit more like Milton Keynes. When it comes to rough sleeping, this Government should take that advice.

Categories
Blog Post

Fix renting to fix lives

As the Renters Rights Bill reaches Report stage, more attention is rightly turning to the 19% of UK households renting privately. The rising financial cost of rent is well known. But a deeper, often hidden cost is going uncounted: the toll renting takes on people’s wellbeing.

New analysis from PBE’s Caught in a Trap report shows that the way we rent is quietly undermining wellbeing. Using the latest data from the English Housing Survey and Understanding Society, we find that renters are three times more likely than homeowners to be in “wellbeing poverty”—defined as rating life satisfaction 4 or below out of 10 on the ONS scale.

Renters are more likely to have persistently low life satisfaction than homeowners. One in 10 (10%) renters find themselves in this position. The question is, to what extent is this down to the experience of renting? Or is it simply that, due to other demographic and economic factors, people who experience low wellbeing are more likely to be renters?

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The hidden cost of private renting

Renters in both social and privately rented homes face real challenges, but the data shows the link between wellbeing, poverty and housing is particularly pronounced in the private rented sector. Social renters also often report low life satisfaction, but much of this is closely tied to individual factors like poor health, low income or disability.

Even after accounting for the same demographic, economic and health characteristics, private renters are still more likely to experience wellbeing poverty. This suggests private renting itself carries a wellbeing penalty—something about the experience makes life harder.

This wellbeing penalty affects 4.6 million private renting households and is valued at around £3,700 per person per year, using Treasury wellbeing valuation methods.

The wellbeing penalty for private renting

The primary drivers of the wellbeing penalty for private renters are affordability, quality and insecurity. Private renters spend an average of 39% of their income on housing, far more than social renters (29%) or homeowners with mortgages (20%). Given that rents have risen by 18% over the past five years, this pressure shows no signs of easing. For many, this means constant financial stress, limited choices, and a reduced quality of life. Affordability concerns explain around two-fifths of the private renting wellbeing penalty.  

Our analysis suggests that, based on new modelling, the number of people in England likely to be experiencing low wellbeing is around 110,000 higher among private renters than it would be if they had the same wellbeing outcomes as similar people in other housing tenures. As more households are pushed into the private rented sector, this gap may grow, along with the cost to the nation’s wellbeing.

Insecurity is another key factor. Nearly 40% of private renters have lived in their homes for less than a year, and many remain at risk of “no-fault” eviction under Section 21. Millions remain vulnerable to losing their homes with just two months’ notice, making it harder to plan, build community, or feel truly settled.

Scotland shows a potential way forward

Fixing our housing crisis requires long-term, system-wide solutions. However, reforming renting here and now can deliver meaningful change. Scotland, where reforms have been in force since 2017, including the introduction of open-ended tenancies and stronger protections against rent increases, shows what’s possible. Since then, the wellbeing penalty for private renters has improved. If these improvements were entirely due to the reforms, their value could be as much as £4 billion annually. Changes to housing policy can significantly improve people’s quality of life.

England can follow suit. The Renters’ Rights Bill will abolish Section 21 evictions, improve protections, and allow renters to challenge unfair rent hikes. If implemented well, it could lift 50,000 people out of wellbeing poverty and improve life for many more.

The Bill alone isn’t enough. Without proper enforcement from already stretched councils, rights risk being paper promises, and issues with affordability in particular may persist.  

Affordable private renting is the next step

Homes are the foundation of our wellbeing. They shape whether we feel secure and supported. The case for housing reform goes beyond market efficiency to dignity, fairness and quality of life.

Big problems like Britain’s housing crisis demand big solutions that take time to deliver. Focusing only on the long-term can risk leaving today’s renters behind. As Scotland’s experience shows, meaningful reform to the rental market can improve people’s lives now, while we work towards the systemic change the housing market needs.

The Renters’ Rights Bill offers an opportunity to reduce the insecurity and stress of millions of renters. But we need to think not just about legislation, but about enforcement, support and affordability.

That’s why PBE is exploring how to make private renting more affordable, and we’re looking for collaborators to support this work. Real progress is possible in the short term as well as the years to come and requires political will to grab opportunities to fix renting and improve lives.