12 COMMENT
Patrick Mooney Housing Consultant
Planning permission shortages stifle housing growth
As the Government and construction sector struggle to meet ambitious housing targets, record low planning approvals and economic uncertainty underscore the challenges. Patrick Mooney highlights the urgent need for reforms to address the crisis.
T
he New Year brought with it an absolute slew of gloomy news articles highlighting the difficulties facing the Government and the construction sector, as they both struggle to come to terms with the challenge of delivering the very ambitious targets for building new homes. We had already been warned of extreme shortages of available sites, money, skilled labour, supporting infrastructure and the materials and components for building new homes, when we received what was perhaps the most pessimistic and alarming news from the Home Builders Federation. 2025 was only a few days old when the HBF issued its Housing Pipeline Report, containing data from leading market research and intelligence firm lenigan, which showed a continued downward trend in planning approval figures for in , in both the number of sites and homes approved for development. With just 2,260 sites approved in July to September, this marked a 10% decline from the previous quarter and it was the lowest quarterly total recorded since the HBF began reporting in 2006. The rolling annual total of 10,180 sites approved also represented a new record low, further illustrating the significant challenges the housing sector faces in meeting growing demand. While the number of homes approved during increased by to ,, this was still below the peak. The rolling annual total of , homes saw a modest rise from but this remains lower than the same period in . The decline in planning approvals highlights that, to meet
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the overnment’s target of , new homes annually, approvals need to increase by over 150%.
HUGE INCREASE IN SUPPLY NEEDED Neil Jefferson, chief executive of the HBF commented: “The continued decline in planning approvals is deeply concerning and underlines the scale of the challenge we face in addressing the country’s housing crisis. “Efforts by the Government to reform planning policy are very welcome, but the data makes it clear that much more needs to be done to re-ignite housing delivery. Planning approvals will need to increase by more than 150% to meet the Government’s target, which is a huge leap from the current figures. The gloomy statistics were underpinned by other indicators showing a very subdued development sector – whether it is the number of new Energy Performance ertificates issued, or the council taxbase statistics, they all point in a worrying downward direction. First up we saw that Energy Performance ertificate registrations for new builds have been falling for the last couple of years. The number of EPCs registered in the year ending September was down on the previous year, and the rolling 12-month total is down compared to , when housing supply was at its peak. This represents a drop of almost , homes. Then there are the number of new properties added to local authority council tax lists. Since 2020, the Government has published annual council taxbase statistics each November, covering the period to the preceding September which is a more up to date
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