London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Government's housebuilding U-turn makes it 'harder to deliver 300,000 homes'

Government's housebuilding U-turn makes it 'harder to deliver 300,000 homes'

Critics say some cities are already struggling to find land on brownfield sites
A government U-turn on plans to increase housebuilding in the Tory heartlands will make it harder to hit the target of building 300,000 new homes every year, leading planners have warned.

Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, announced on Wednesday that 20 cities would instead be asked to build an extra 100,000 new homes in the next five years, heading off a rebellion from Conservative councillors and backbenchers.

But planners said it would make it more difficult to increase housebuilding because some cities were already struggling to find land on brownfield sites and it might trigger protracted negotiations where cities tried to hand off their housing requirements to neighbouring rural authorities.

Jenrick said the new housing plan was “levelling up” by targeting 35% increases in building in cities including Bradford, Hull, Leeds and Stoke. He said that after Covid’s economic impact there was an “opportunity to repurpose more commercial centres, offices and retail spaces into housing”.

Outside London, Birmingham is set to see the biggest increase in proposed building, with more than 1,200 additional new homes now expected on top of existing demand for 3,577 per year. Bristol is being told it will need to more than double its existing annual delivery from about 1,500 to 3,200, according to analysis by Lichfields, a planning and development consultancy.

But Matthew Spry, senior director of Lichfields, said the new system “makes it more difficult to deliver 300,000 homes a year”.

He said that some of the cities facing demands for more housebuilding had previously struggled because “they don’t have enough land”.

Toby Lloyd, Theresa May’s former housing adviser, said the strategy would not, on its own, boost housebuilding, and shifting targets to cities may make hitting housing targets harder, without other measures.

“The government remains stuck in the same hole as before, namely, how to square centralised target-setting with the desire to leave actual decisions on where homes go to local processes,” he said. “Shifting the balance of the formula towards cities and the north may relieve the immediate political pressure, but without stronger interventions as well it won’t address the deeper problems of planning, housing supply or affordability.”

Jenrick said: “This government wants to build more homes as a matter of social justice, for intergenerational fairness and to create jobs for working people. We are reforming our planning system to ensure it is simpler and more certain without compromising standards of design, quality and environmental protection.”

The shift to building in cities follows a political backlash in August against what one Tory MP described as a “mutant algorithm” which prioritised building in villages and towns in the south-east, while reducing construction of new housing in northern England. It was designed, in part, to suggest more housebuilding in areas of greatest unaffordability.

The Local Government Association said it would “seriously jeopardise” the government’s professed intent to level up economic activity in disadvantaged areas of the country. The CPRE charity said it would lead to “a massive loss of countryside”.

The original proposals would have reportedly required housebuilding in Newcastle to fall by 66%, Manchester by 37% and the north-east generally by 28%, while in the south-east outside London development would have risen by 57%.

Critics said the plans as they stood would abolish the traditional distinction in British planning between built-up areas and the 70-80% of land that was still rural and accelerate the decline of poorer cities.

The new plans include a £100m “brownfield land release fund” to promote urban regeneration and development on public sector land.

Ministers also allocated more than £67m in funding to the West Midlands and Greater Manchester authorities to deliver new homes.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×