UK Housing Spotlight: A Planning Perspective

The UK planning framework is often seen as an obstacle to housing delivery, but whilst practitioners have grown weary from a series of legal and policy reforms introduced by successive governments, very little has been done to improve things from a macro perspective.

Will the experience be any better this time?

The Government's current target is to deliver 300,000 additional homes by the mid-2020s with much of that growth expected to come from the London Region. The Mayor of London's draft London Plan (published for consultation on 1 December 2017) sets a target of around 65,000 homes a year, a significant increase from the previous plan figure of 42,000. Part of the strategy is to get developers building at higher densities in the suburbs, by scrapping previous limits, and with an overall target of 50% affordable homes.