Tag: Housing

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

It’s time to move away from leasehold in older people’s housing

The Government swept to power with an overwhelming majority last summer and a mandate to deliver change. What better time is there to improve UK housing by reforming leasehold?

An important part of the housing sector in the context of the UK’s ageing population is specialist housing for older people. For example, Integrated Retirement Communities feature comprehensive service offerings such as restaurants, gyms and personal care (as distinct from age-restricted retirement housing with fewer amenities and services). Research from Homes England, published in 2024 and backed by HM Treasury, found that modern housing-with care schemes, such as Integrated Retirement Communities, deliver NHS savings of £1,840 per resident per year given their positive impact on resident health, as well as removing the factors that drive delayed discharges from hospital.

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But what is the right tenure of the future for Older People’s Housing? The independent Taskforce on Older People’s Housing’s, whose final report was published last autumn, recommended the UK look at new tenure models used overseas in order to drive growth in provision, affordability and innovation in the sector. Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook MP noted there is “rightly significant national interest in the Taskforce’s findings”.

Tenure reform in Older People’s Housing is needed not only because of the limitations of the current leasehold system, but because the UK is an outlier in its focus on property ownership in Older People’s Housing.

Indeed, the UK is highly unusual in using long leases (which are subsequently resold from one customer to the next) in modern, service-based housing-with-care schemes for older people.

Countries with more developed Integrated Retirement Community sectors have swapped a focus on property ‘ownership’ for a focus on those things that matter most to customers – affordability, cost certainty and consumer protection – all of which are delivered using contracts.

The experience of other countries, such as New Zealand, shows that a move to a bespoke tenure for the sector has massively helped the sector’s growth, as well as enhancing consumer confidence.

ARCO, the main body representing the Integrated Retirement Community (IRC) sector in the UK, has been looking into the viability of a contract model for the IRC sector in the UK since 2020, consulting with stakeholders from around the world, along with lawyers and investors. Our core conclusions to date are that the contract approach could work in the UK and could be used in both new and existing schemes as part of widespread reform to the leasehold system.

We are calling our proposal the ‘Retirement Occupancy Contract’ (ROC). Implementing such a model could be an important achievement of this Labour government.

Why? A key benefit of the model would be improved affordability and access to the sector for older people on average incomes, opening up this option to more households and ensuring that more older people have the option of living in an Integrated Retirement Community.

Implementing a contract approach can be included as part of the government’s leasehold reform agenda. Only minor amendments to primary legislation would be needed.

The leasehold system is commonly described as “archaic”, “feudal” and “outdated”. Although the Integrated Retirement Community sector in the UK has grown using Leasehold as the default tenure for private payers, the time is right to learn from best practice in other countries and provide the sector with a bespoke tenure model.

With a growing ageing population looking for housing that meets their changing needs, there has never been a better time to do away with the outdated leasehold system and create the tenure of the future.

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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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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

Adapting to the digital age in the Government’s 10-year plan for housing

Any ten year plan for housing has to at least try to grapple with some of the Rumsfeldian “known unknowns” – in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, the more we know the more we know we don’t know. 

Nowhere is this as prevalent as the impact that better and faster technologies continue to have on the transition from an analogue world, where knowledge is held in tangible form, to an increasingly digital one where knowledge is held in the form of “ones or zeros” in a server farm in the middle of nowhere.

This is hard stuff for humans, and the organisations they have created for the analogue world, to adapt to.  The rate of technological progress already far outstrips the rate of evolution of the human race – and that’s before quantum computing (QC) becomes widely available.  To give an idea of the power of quantum, Google reported in 2023 that their Sycamore quantum computer managed in seconds to crunch numbers that using the Frontier supercomputer (then the most powerful computer in the world) would take over 47 years – that’s roughly 10 million times quicker.   

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Is QC with all that potential to boost speeds and productivity going to develop to be in the mainstream in the next 10 years?  Nobody knows – it is for now firmly in VUCA territory.  But its not contentious to say that technologies are bringing advances at an exponential rate – as the surge in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in the last 3 years has shown.  The pace at which the potential of these technologies will grow seems unlikely to slow.

To suggest that the housing world has been slow to adopt and adapt to the increased pace of digitalization over the last decade is also not contentious.   Customers judge their landlord not against its performance with some other landlord, but against the speed, price and effectiveness of other organisations they deal with in their lives.  And relative to the very best out there, social landlords continue to fall behind.  As an example, car manufacturers will now call drivers to alert them to a drop in tyre pressure – but few landlords have any equivalent way of knowing that pressure in a boiler has dropped and the heating has stopped working, let alone devised ways of working to take advantage of this insight.

Put simply, technology and digitalization has the potential to change the game for the biggest gripe there is between landlords and residents: moving the mindset for repairing homes from one based around “you tell us its broken, we will fix it” to “we can predict this will break, so we are coming to fix it before it does”. 

Of course, in the general economy, the invisible hand of the market assures that there are rewards for those who “move with the times” and penalties for those who do not.  In fields such as social housing, that hand has to be driven through regulation.  And for the next 10 years, Government and its associated Regulator, has to up its game in relation to technology and data expectations.  Perhaps there are four areas to prioritise:

  1. Getting the basics right.  For three consecutive years, the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) has been warning that social landlords’ data and digital practices are not up to scratch.  Residents, the Housing Ombudsman Service, MPs and local councillors all know it from the range of complaints they make or have to deal with; and the Information Commissioners Office knows it from the reported data breaches.   But regulatory action has not followed; Government should ensure that on such an important aspect of modern service delivery, the Regulator can no longer be ignored with impunity.
  2. Moving to real-time. Once data is comprehensive and accurate a transition to real-time becomes possible.  Many possible improvements flow from this such as: evidencing compliance can become continuous, rather than episodic; service charges can be calculated precisely for the services provided for the extract duration of the tenancy; and real time data sits at the heart of the automation (and enhanced efficiency) of service delivery.
  3. Transparency. When data was kept on paper, inside files, and office floors groaned with the weight of many filing cabinets, making information visible to others was hard.  Digital data faces no such barriers.  The time has come for Government to mandate that all data about a resident’s tenancy, their home and the services they receive is available without asking, so the “I know what they know” test is passed
  4. Professionalism and skills. With a pause in the launch of the Competence and Conduct standard, the Government has a chance to rectify the glaring omission from the consultation document – in which neither the word “data”, “digital”, nor “technology” appear.  You cannot be a professional today without this skill set, let alone in 10 years’ time.   

In short, the government should set a direction and regulatory expectations for housing organisations to have “Digital in their DNA” – where technological and digital competence is so deeply embedded in the landlords’ culture and capabilities, its leadership style, and its associated systems and processes that it has stopped even being a thing organisations have to think about.  And to do that, first, the digital competence of the RSH itself has to be prioritised and invested in so it no longer uses an old map to navigate a very different new world.

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How building Council housing can help Labour beat Reform UK

How to beat Reform UK? It’s the question many in the Labour Party are now asking, with increasing desperation.

Alienated from mainstream politics and politicians, Reform UK supporters see Labour as the ‘establishment’ with little concern or understanding for their lives or their problems. To reach Reform supporters, Labour needs to show in practical, concrete ways that it ‘gets’ Reform voters’ concerns. Labour needs to deliver practical and concrete improvements across the country.

The answer is straightforward. Labour needs to build more council homes and create more non-graduate jobs. And we can do both at the same time using the same money.

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Building more council homes in every part of the country will directly benefit those families who are currently in housing need. Those who are overcrowded or who need a smaller home. Those who are homeless and living in expensive and substandard private rented accommodation. Those whose children and grandchildren are paying through the roof to private landlords for very basic accommodation.

Many of these families have lost faith in mainstream politics after 14 years of failed Conservative governments when few new council homes were built and many continued to be sold off. We need to show, by our actions, that the needs of the non-graduates living in non-metropolitan parts of the country are just as much a priority for Labour as anywhere else.

The new council homes Labour builds should benefit the widest range of families. When new council homes are being built, existing residents should know that they will benefit, too. A central message should be that the new council homes are not just for ‘other people’ or ‘outsiders’, they are for people like YOU. Using local housing allocation policies in operation on many Labour councils already, half the new homes should go to those families who have been waiting patiently for a bigger or smaller home. The other half should go to those who are currently homeless or have been languishing on the housing waiting list.

Building new council homes needs a range of traditional non-graduate skills – bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, plasterers, scaffolders, painters, decorators, carpenters. Just watch an episode of Nick Knowles’ DIY SOS to see the wide range of non-graduate trades needed to build or renovate a house.

Using existing construction companies, local subcontractors and their employees will benefit, too. Many of these subcontractors will be small businesses and will get a real boost by Labour’s council house building programme. Local council house building programmes will give small construction companies the long-term commitment needed to plan their investment.

Working with local colleges, we need a massive construction skills training programme, equipping people of all ages with a skill that will form the basis of a lifetime working career. Construction skills give access to jobs in every part of the country and to any country in the world. You can work for a company or be your own boss, working hard to build a business that gives you and your family financial security and independence. The construction workers benefitting from Labour’s council house building programme will have a real and tangible stake in the economy and in society.

When the new residents move in, some will want new furniture, new carpets and new white goods. Buying these will help local shops and help grow the wider economy. Others will want to paint or paper the walls and add a few personal touches, benefitting local DIY shops.

And don’t forget that the new council tenants will be paying rent to the Council which will then be used to pay back the money it borrowed to build the new homes.

As John Harris wrote in a recent ‘Guardian article, the politics are very basic,

“Four decades ago, many of Reform UK’s older supporters had their lives transformed by Margaret Thatcher’s policy of encouraging people to buy their council houses at huge discounts; now, their daughters, sons and grandchildren live with the dire housing crisis that policy caused. If you understand at least some of the rising ire about immigration as fear of even more competition for scarce resources, housing is right at its heart: in my experience, no other issue comes near its impact on everyday life.”

We have it in our power to embark on the biggest council housing programme since 1945. If we don’t take this opportunity and then lose out to Reform UK in 2029, it will be our own fault. Let’s not make this mistake!

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10-year plan for housing Blog Post

What does the housing sector need from Government to deliver on their long-term ambitions for housing?

As Director of Policy and Public Affairs at The Housing Forum I work with organisations from across the whole of the housing sector – from construction companies and architects, to housebuilders, housing associations and local authorities. I also keep abreast of housing policy – helping our members understand new developments and ensuring the government understands the needs of the sector.

The last year has been a fascinating time to have one foot in industry and one in policy circles. On the policy side, it’s the most positive I’ve ever seen. The new government has come in with huge enthusiasm to tackle the housing problems in the country, a willingness to burn political capital in doing so and – above all – a willingness to listen. It’s been greeted with pretty much unanimous enthusiasm from across the sector too. Yet at the same time, in the sector itself, the financial challenges are huge. After 15 years of high house price growth, the market sector is struggling with the slow-down alongside a sharp rise in construction costs, whilst the social housing sector struggles also with increased costs of building safety and maintaining existing homes, rising costs of borrowing and grant rates that just aren’t stacking up to support the building of much-needed new social housing.

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So what does it need to do to turn this tough situation around and build the new homes, including social housing, that we need?

The first and biggest answer has to be funding. Keen to establish themselves as fiscally responsible, Labour came to power making few promises that involved any spending – and there have been no major funding announcements for housing as yet, though the sector awaits the Spring Spending Review with trepidation. The next Affordable Homes Programme will be the main source of funding for developing new social housing. Grant rates need to be high enough to bridge the gap between construction and land costs, and the amount that landlords can borrow against future rental income. If the government also wants to sector to prioritise social rented housing over other options (Affordable Rent, or shared ownership) then this requires additional funding, as the subsidy required per dwelling is significantly higher.

The other way to support the sector is to support the finances of social landlords, so they’re better able to raise capital. The Building Safety Fund ensures that leaseholders do not have to pay for remediating fire safety issues, but social landlords have not been protected and are having to pay from reserves. If landlords are having to spend their own reserves on remediation, they cannot commit this same money to developing new housing, and nor can they borrow if their capital position is not strong enough. Fully funding building safety work for the social housing sector would be the first step to getting some of the biggest social housebuilders, who have the expertise – and in many cases already own the vacant sites – to build again.

Supporting the social housing sector in this way will not only help build the new social housing we need, but will also help the whole of the housing sector moving towards the 1.5 million new homes target – especially while the market for sales remains stagnant.

But Government doesn’t have unlimited funds, and housing is by no means the only call on them. So what else could government do that doesn’t involve funding?

Planning is a big part of the answer, and the new Government has hit the ground running with planning reform. The changes are welcome, and will now need time to bed in, alongside maintaining the strong rhetoric to ensure all areas play their part in delivering against the new targets.

Government could look to reduce the subsidy needed for social housing by looking at social rents. The previous government reduced rents for four years, meaning that they are currently significantly lower in real terms than they were in 2010. The G15 (group of the largest housing associations in the London area) has calculated that 29% of’ homes are currently below target rent, losing them £67.7m each year in rental income. They could also consider allowing higher rents for more energy-efficient homes, something that we’ve called for at The Housing Forum, to help leverage in some private finance for retrofitting. Increasing rents could see a backlash from tenants (as well as increased costs born by the DWP via higher benefit claims). A key concern would be the impact on those affected by the benefit cap – abolishing the cap would ensure that the welfare safety net works effectively for all types of families to help them afford their rent.

And finally, looking to the longer term and to a higher rate of housebuilding across many years, the government needs to ensure that the sector has the skilled workers it needs:

  • Increased investment is needed in training and developing the workforce. FE Colleges must create training facilities and training that meets with the skills requirements of employers and the sector.
  • Staff in FE colleges and universities need to undertake continued professional development to ensure that they are up to speed with the current practice and regulations around construction.
  • Government should make dramatic improvements to careers guidance in schools to help teenagers make informed decisions about the later stages of their education, and much better knowledge of the types of job opportunities that are out there. Work experience, part-time jobs, internships and visits to local employers can all help.
  • There needs to be clear pathways for young people from school into the many different careers in construction, which includes both building new homes and maintaining and upgrading the existing stock. The London Homes Coalition has done some good work on this area.
  • The Government should not overlook the need of mid-career switchers – who have potential to expand their skillset into growing areas, such as green technology. This requires more flexible approaches to retraining and funding.

Overall, it’s been great to see such as strong focus on housing from the new Government, particularly around planning reform. But it’s now time for them to put their money where their mouth is in terms of the affordable housing sector.

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Building homes connected to infrastructure, the benefits of Transit Oriented Developments

What is a Transit Oriented Development

A Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is an urban planning approach that focuses on creating high-density, mixed-use communities centred around public transit hubs.

At its core, TOD integrates transport infrastructure, such as rail, bus, or metro stations, with surrounding land use to create accessible, liveable communities that are well-connected by public transit and complemented by high-quality public spaces.

Over the past few decades, TOD projects have been implemented across the globe, showcasing the concept’s broad appeal and effectiveness in reshaping urban landscapes.

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Key Benefits of TOD:

  • Environmental Sustainability: TODs promote public transit use and reduce car dependency, which leads to lower greenhouse gas emissions and a reduced overall environmental footprint.
  • Reduced Traffic Congestion: By encouraging the use of public transport, TODs alleviate road congestion, contributing to more efficient urban mobility.
  • Economic Development: TODs stimulate local economies by fostering vibrant communities, increasing foot traffic for businesses, generating employment opportunities, and potentially enhancing property values.
  • Improved Quality of Life: Residents of TOD communities enjoy reduced commute times, convenient access to amenities, and a stronger sense of community, contributing to a higher quality of life.
  • Placemaking: Through the creation of pedestrian-friendly pathways, non-vehicular routes, and public plazas, TODs prioritize walkability and cultivate dynamic public spaces that enhance the sense of place and community engagement.

Overall, TODs represent a forward-thinking approach to urban development that balances the needs of transport, environmental sustainability, and community wellbeing.

Types of Transit Oriented Developments that will boost Homebuilding

TODs offer a powerful approach to addressing the dual challenges of providing new housing and fostering sustainable urban growth. When considering TODs for housing development, it is essential to examine them at two distinct levels:

1. New Transit Hubs
TODs centered around new transit hubs are typically long-term projects that involve complex planning, substantial investment, and public-private collaboration. In the UK, for instance, the Crossrail project has demonstrated the potential for such developments to transform urban landscapes, both in terms of transit infrastructure and land value.

These types of TODs leverage the increased land value generated by new transit infrastructure, with private developers playing a key role in financing the project over the long term. Although these developments are generally not “quick wins,” they are integral to the delivery of new residential stock and the broader vision of sustainable urban growth.

2. Existing Transit Hubs
TODs developed over and around existing transit hubs offer an opportunity for more immediate impact on residential development. Given the existing infrastructure, these developments can be realised more quickly, at a lower cost, and with fewer challenges compared to new projects centered on greenfield sites. Expanding and enhancing local infrastructure within established areas is typically easier and more cost-effective than building these services from scratch in new neighborhoods.

Furthermore, the higher density typical of TODs allow for more efficient use of land, offering private developers higher rates of return. This enables the leveraging of additional funding for public and social infrastructure improvements, including social housing.

In both cases, TODs serve as a crucial tool for boosting residential housing supply, promoting public transit use, and driving urban regeneration. However, by focusing on the existing transit hub type it is likely that a real difference can be made in a shorter timeframe by potentially utlilising the thousands of transit hubs all over the country.

What can be done to Enable Transit Oriented Developments around Existing Transit Hubs

1. Over-Station Development

One of the most promising forms of TOD is the redevelopment of existing buildings or the construction of new developments directly above transit hubs, known as over-station development. While this approach maximizes land use in high-demand areas, it often comes with high costs, potential disruptions, and safety concerns, particularly if the transit hub must remain operational during construction.

In some cases, the potential value of land created by developing space over transit hubs justifies the complexities involved. A notable example of such a project is the ongoing development at Euston Station, which demonstrates the feasibility of over-station TODs in major transit centres.

2. Land Acquisition and Cost

Redeveloping land or building new developments around transit hubs in densely populated or high-cost urban areas presents significant financial challenges. The cost of land and construction in these areas can be prohibitively high, limiting the scope for TODs. However, Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) can mitigate this by changing zoning regulations to allow for greater density and height in the areas surrounding transit hubs.

In turn, this could help create a market for new residential and commercial properties in areas that are currently underutilised, driving both housing supply and economic growth.

3. Integration with Existing Transit Infrastructure

For TODs to be successful, they must be integrated with the existing transit infrastructure. This often requires significant upgrades to transit facilities or adjustments to accommodate the increased demand generated by higher-density developments. However, such upgrades can be costly and complex.

Through public-private partnerships, developers can help fund necessary improvements to transit infrastructure as part of the overall TOD planning process. By using ‘planning gain’ to ensure that the financial benefits of TODs are reinvested in the public transit system, they can enhance both the transport experience for commuters and the overall effectiveness of the transit network.

4. Equity Concerns and Gentrification

While TODs can bring numerous benefits, they also present the risk of gentrification, where rising demand for properties near transit hubs drives up housing costs, potentially displacing low-income residents. To mitigate this, LPAs can mandate the inclusion of social housing as part of TOD projects. By setting clear targets for affordable housing and ensuring that developments incorporate mixed-tenure communities, the negative impacts of gentrification can be managed.

5. Overcoming Knowledge Gaps

Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) often face barriers due to a lack of expertise in successfully implementing TODs. To address this, government could develop a Best Practice Toolkit for LPAs. This resource would provide planning guidance, showcase successful case studies, and offer insights into navigating public-private partnerships, funding mechanisms, and land value capture strategies.

Additionally, LPAs and LTAs can establish their own development vehicles to spearhead TOD initiatives. A prime example of this is Transport for London’s Transit Trading Limited Properties, which has accelerated the adoption of TOD in the UK by directly managing land development around Transit hubs.

Conclusion

Enabling Transit-Oriented Developments offers a compelling solution to urban housing shortages while promoting sustainable growth and reducing car dependency. By addressing key challenges such as land acquisition, infrastructure integration, and equity concerns, and by providing the necessary tools and expertise to LPAs, TODs can become a cornerstone of future urban planning.

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How the New Zealand retirement village model might work for the UK

'Woman sitting by window' from the Centre for Ageing Better's age-positive image library

Around 53,400 older people chose to live in a retirement village in New Zealand, and 130 people move in each week. This is around 14% of the over-75 demographic nationally and retirement villages have moved from being boutique and misunderstood to a mainstream housing option for older people. For more information about the sector’s growth, market share and development pipeline, see Retirement Villages Market Review | 2024 | JLL Research

Why have villages been so successful? The village promise has four key components:

  • A warm, dry, age-appropriate place to live (houses in NZ are often large and expensive to maintain);
  • The opportunity to make new friends and try new activities;
  • A high degree of financial security (residents know to the last dollar what they pay to move in, know exactly what they’ll get back at the end, and if they’re living in one of the 70% of villages that offer fixed weekly fees, the cost of living in the village will never increase while they’re living there); and
  • A pathway to aged care if that’s required. 65% of villages have a care facility on the campus.

However, this promise isn’t free. The principal business model is called a “licence to occupy” (LTO) and consists of the payment of a capital sum to move in, the payment of a regular fee (often fixed for life) to cover village day-to-day costs, and when the resident dies or moves to care, the operator refurbishes their unit to bring it back to as-new and a new resident moves in. Once the operator has the incoming resident’s capital payment, the outgoing resident is re-paid their original capital sum less a Deferred Management Fee (DMF) that, amongst other things, is the operator’s return on investment.

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This graphic illustrates the model. The resident’s capital sum is protected in the retirement villages legislation and their right to live in the village protected by contract. The consumer protection balances residents’ rights with operators’ duties and responsibilities. The key detail in this model, which enables the operator to make the promises outlined earlier, is that the resident has no ownership interest in their unit or the village, and is therefore protected from the vicissitudes of property ownership – insurance, taxes, repairs and maintenance, and so forth. For many older people, the release from the responsibilities of owning property is a major reason to move.

It’s worth noting that while 70% of villages fix their weekly fee that covers the overheads and day-to-day operation of the village, the costs the fee covers continue to increase even if the income from the fee doesn’t increase. This means that the operator directly cross-subsidizes the residents’ day-to-day overheads from the deferred management fee and any gains in re-licensing the units. Only a retirement village offers this level of financial security for older people.

Another important reason to move is the release of equity in their family home. Retirement villages charge around 70% of the average freehold selling price in the area where they’re built, which allows a resident to sell their home, move to a village and often have substantial amounts of equity to add to their retirement savings. This can make a substantial improvement in the quality of their retirement and allows them to do things they’ve always wanted to but couldn’t afford.

Where an aged care facility is part of the village, the residents get first call on a bed over someone in the community, should they need one. Over the last 10 years or so the only care facilities built have been part of a retirement village, and often the cost of providing care is cross-subsidised by the revenue (and profit) from the village. This pathway to care is another important consideration for older people, and is a key benefit offered by a village.

With the demographics on our side, the retirement village sector has a lot going for it. However, with the governing Act now 20 years old, there are calls for its review, and some stakeholders maintain there’s an imbalance of power; the operators call the shots and residents have to take it or leave it. 

In fact, the regulations encourage the development of a very flexible business models that allow residents to chose from a variety of options – price, service levels, DMF rates, sharing capital gains, and so forth. 

The government has been reviewing the legislation and recently announced that they would focus on just three issues – the treatment of repairs and maintenance, a review of the complaints and disputes regime, and encouraging operators to refund residents capital sums sooner once they move out. 

Operators are relaxed about these reforms, provided the latter doesn’t result in mandatory buybacks and the financial risks that accompany such a move. However, the proposed changes reflect innovations the RVA has already led so most operators have them well in hand.

Possible learnings for the UK

The Older Peoples’ Housing Taskforce recently released their report into an extensive study of how older people might have more choice about where they live. Recommendation Five notes the need for homes that have good age-appropriate design, are affordable, are close to where the intending resident lives and yet are attractive to housing developers.

The Taskforce’s Recommendation Eight notes the importance of offering a range of different housing types with a clear understanding of fees and costs. Their “4 Key Messages” of “Think Housing, Address Ageing, Promote Well-being and provide Inclusive Communities” are at the heart of the NZ retirement village model.

You can access the Taskforce’s report here

Retirement villages are spread across the entire country – cities to provincial and rural towns. The business model works well anywhere, provided residents have the capital sum (and even that is negotiable). Retirement village operators are also the country’s largest home builders and the Retirement Villages Association estimates that around 5,500 family homes are released annually back into the housing market. Villages are significant contributors to easing the chronic housing shortage.

The financial security villages offer residents means a significant improvement in their well-being, general health, and personal sense of security. However, only villages can offer this because the operators continue to own the land and buildings and are responsible for their maintenance and upkeep. Specialist legislation to protect residents’ and operators’ interests is an effective way to allow villages to be built, but it’s essential that the legislation is sufficiently flexible to allow different business models to evolve as the market matures.

Appendix G in the Housing Taskforce’s report includes an outline of the consumer protections in the NZ retirement village-specific legislation. It’s worth noting that this legislation was passed by the Clark Labour Government in 2003 and has generally stood the test of time well.  

The transition to care is incredibly stressful for both the resident and their family. If care is part of the village package, the stress can be much less and the transition to care is effectively seamless.

Ultimately, villages work because the residents themselves have a vested interest in making them work. Villages that are resident-led (residents manage and run the activities rather than activity co-ordinators employed by the operator) tend to be more successful, popular and encourage new people to move in.

For more detailed information about the NZ Retirement Villages sector, see the RVA’s response to the Retirement Commission’s White Paper for a legislative review.

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Is there hope for housing in the Lib Dems?

Ed Davey & SSEs Paul Smith by Department of Energy and Climate Change is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

2024 has been a year of unprecedented success for the Liberal Democrats. With the party seeing a record 72 MPs elected in July, the party has managed to quickly turn around a decade of difficulties since their time in the coalition government.

With this comes genuine power. The Lib Dems chair three parliamentary select committees, most notably the Health and Social Care Committee. Ed Davey has two regular questions at PMQs, allowing him an avenue to forge a national policy platform.

The Liberal Democrats are also in power across 68 local authorities across the country, covering over 6 million people.   

This success puts the party in an awkward space, and one which the British political system struggles to accommodate, as a true third party, well in advance of Reform or the Greens, but a fair distance from the official opposition.

Where the Lib Dems go next is up for debate. Are they the party of attention-grabbing stunts and comical bar-charts? Or are they a serious contender for government, needing to flip a mere 25 seats to overtake the Conservatives?

When it comes to housing, this duality runs deep.

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The detail

The Lib Dems had the most detailed housing proposals of any party at the election, with over 500 words on their plans across housing delivery and homelessness. Their headline pledges were as follows:

  • Building 380,000 a year across the UK, including 150,000 social homes a year, majoring on community-lead development
  • Banning no-fault evictions, making three-year tenancies the default, and creating a national register of licensed landlords
  • Giving local authorities, the powers to end Right to Buy in their areas.
  • Ending rough sleeping within the next Parliament
  • Abolishing residential leaseholds and capping ground rents to a nominal fee

The full plan is available here, with fair detail on ending rough sleeping and empowering social tenants.

A starkly divided party

Many will be familiar with the Liberal Democrats’ divides over housing delivery, most notably at coming to a head at the party’s 2023 conference, where members defeated a motion supported by the party’s leadership which would have abandoned their target of 380,000 homes.

Some decry the party as a hub for opportunistic ‘NIMBYs’ seeking to oppose all new housing. A quick search of “Liberal Democrats” and “housing” reveals a slew of local opposition to housebuilding since the election, including in the New Forest and South Leicestershire.

But it also brings up cases of Liberal Democrats pushing Labour councils to increase their affordable housing targets in Lambeth and Southwark, highlighting inaction on an abandoned development in Wiltshire, and even facing down opposition to new homes while in administration in  the Cotswolds.

The party’s main housing figures, Vicky Slade and Gideon Amos, also have real housing experience, as a council leader and town planner respectively.

The Lib Dems in Parliament and the delivery dividing line

While some opposition parties like the Conservatives, Reform UK or even the Greens have hit out hard against some of Labour’s housing announcements, the Liberal Democrats have been more reserved in their approach.

In Parliament they have been openly supportive several of the Government’s measures, including welcoming the Government’s Remediation Acceleration Plan and voting for the Renters’ Rights Bill.

The main dividing line which they have so far placed has been on housing delivery. While the party is supportive of increasing housing supply, they have been openly critical of ‘top-down’ housing targets and have instead favoured a community-led approach, with a primary focus of delivering 150,000 social homes a year.

This was reflected most recently in Amos’ response to the Government’s NPPF reforms:

“Top-down planning diktats risk a surge in speculative greenfield permissions of the kind that the Minister is concerned about, for homes that are out of people’s reach. Instead, let us fund, incentivise and focus on the social and affordable homes that we need…”

This may be a popular rallying cry, but it ignores the reality of the past few years.

Opposing ‘top-down’ targets ignores the reality that when the last Government abandoned targets, housebuilding collapsed, and that the new Government’s approach to reinstating these has been followed by new starts increasing.

A target of 150,000 social homes a year, while admirable, ignores the fact that, even going by the more generous measure of ‘affordable homes’,  fewer than a third of this goal are currently being delivered. Using this goal as a reason to oppose new housebuilding in general, without a firm plan to deliver it, is pure opportunism.

And suggesting community-led planning as an alternative ignores the fact that few people outside of a hyper-engaged, largely more privileged minority, get involved in the planning system as it is.

While the Liberal Democrats’ vision for housebuilding may be a principled one, it appears out-of-place amid its largely more pragmatic approach. More importantly, it allows space for MPs, including the party’s Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper, to opportunistically rally against building more homes in their local area.

Is there real hope for the Lib Dems?

Unlike the other opposition parties, the Liberal Democrats have a genuine plan to solve the housing crisis, with a broad policy platform with several good ideas.

In order to have a real impact, however, the party needs to moderate its anti-housing opportunists and play less into the populist rallying cries of more minor parties. Most importantly, it needs to acknowledge that any housing policy needs the keystone of a serious plan for delivery, which recognises both the scale of the challenge and the need for a top-down approach.

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Kemi Badenoch’s shift right bodes ill for housing

Kemi Badenoch MP (North West Essex, Conservative) by House of Commons is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The 2024 general election saw the worst result for the Conservative Party in terms of share of seats and votes since its formation in the nineteenth century.

But the Conservatives’ failure should not preclude their return. Only three Conservative leaders have failed to become prime minister, and some recent polls have already put them ahead of Labour. Even a minor swing could put them back in power, with Kemi Badenoch as prime minister.

Badenoch served as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government between the election and her victory in the Conservative leadership contest, and so we know more about her housing positions than other aspects of her views. And her approach so far demonstrates a worrying drift to the right.

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Shifting right on renters’ reform

One of the biggest disappointments of the last Government was a failure to pass the Renters’ Reform Bill. In ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and bringing in new standards to the private rented sector, the legislation would have been life-changing for millions of private renters.

While Badenoch served in administrations which introduced this legislation, she quickly pivoted after the election to oppose Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which is very similar to the Conservatives’ Bill.

Speaking at the Bill’s Second Reading, she parroted the talking points of landlord lobby groups that the bill would reduce the availability of homes in the private rental sector, while failing to discuss where those homes would go.

This potential tilt away from renters’ rights was further reinforced by Badenoch’s pick for Shadow Housing Minister: Kevin Hollinrake. Hollinrake was founder and chair of Hunters’ estate agents until 2021, and was reported to have numbered among the opponents of his own government’s Renters’ Reform Bill in 2023.

Shifting right on housing delivery

Can building homes be left or right wing? Seemingly under Kemi Badenoch it can be, as housing has become part of her wider ideological conflict with the left.

This has manifested in her blaming left wing administrations in urban centres and the bureaucratic ‘deep state’ for a failure to build the homes we need.

The former continues a long-standing trend of Conservatives trying to disproportionately focus construction in urban areas.

This is for a brazenly political reason: Conservatives have long abandoned metropolitan voters and are happy to concentrate in these areas the disruption caused by building more homes. Accordingly, in 2021 they introduced a somewhat arbitrary 35% “urban uplift” to the 20 most densely populated towns and cities outside of London, and, in 2024 Michael Gove launched a review of Sadiq Khan’s London Plan as a way to criticise the mayor for failing to deliver enough homes.

Badenoch has also continued this tradition, attacking Khan on a similar basis in three of her eight speeches as Shadow Housing Minister.

Similarly, while Badenoch has made pleas to protect the green belt, she has simultaneously started to champion a deregulatory planning policy with measures to “roll back the environmental laws, the diversity and social requirements”, blaming the bureaucratic state for the failures to build more homes.

This is a disappointing hallmark of the Conservatives’ housing policy. While the party failed to meet their own housing targets, before ditching them entirely to appease ‘NIMBY’ backbenchers, their only real solution for the lack of delivery in urban areas has been, and continues to be under Badenoch, to blame local leaders.

Shifting right on migration

A further worrying trend of Badenoch’s tenure as Shadow Housing Minister has been a shift to blame migration for the increase in rent levels, stating that “The only way to improve the lives of [private renters] is to control immigration and build more homes, particularly in high-demand areas like Inner London.”

This is not a far cry from Reform UK’s dishonest blaming migrants for the lack of social housing. Unlike Reform’s argument, which is based purely on falsehood, there is some truth to the idea that any new entrants into the private rental sector will increase demand, whatever their country of origin.

However, this is only part of the picture. Migrants already have significant barriers to renting privately, including language barriers, difficulty finding guarantors, and Right to Rent checks, and so landlords when surveyed admit that they are less likely to rent to someone without a British passport. As a 2017 briefing from the House of Commons Library states:

“Research suggests that new migrants often enter the PRS in areas of low demand, filling less desirable property left by individuals moving into better housing. This may be because some groups of migrants only have access to low-paid or insecure work, but it also reflects variations in perceptions of standards and personal priorities.”

As John Perry notes, this also means that foreign nationals are more likely to live in sub-standard accommodation, the regulation of which Badenoch strongly opposes.

While Badenoch is still new in position, the direction of her housing policy so far demonstrates a concerning shift to the right, with renters, migrants and the environment thrown under the bus. This divisive rhetoric is simply a distillation of the arguments made by the Conservatives in government, and a worrying sign that Badenoch has learned little from the lessons of the past.

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