England’s housing shortfall is often framed as a question of numbers: how many homes are needed, how many are being built and how far delivery is falling behind national targets. But for Luke Brafield, a partner in our development agency team, the challenge runs deeper. In this article, he explains why fixing housing delivery will require more than ambition on paper; it depends on rebuilding confidence across the development process.
The warning that England could miss the Government’s housebuilding target by more than 660,000 homes over the next five years should make uncomfortable reading for anyone involved in housing, planning or land. But the real issue is not the figure itself; it is what it reveals about confidence across the development process: whether landowners feel able to release sites, developers can justify investment, planners have the certainty and capacity to make decisions, lenders are willing to fund schemes and buyers feel able to commit.
For years, the debate has centred on targets: 300,000 homes a year, 1.5 million over a Parliament, local housing need and five-year land supply. Targets matter because they create political focus. But they do not pour foundations, unlock sites, secure planning consent, agree section 106 terms, finance infrastructure or persuade a landowner that now is the right time to sell. Delivery happens when confidence runs through the chain, from landowner to promoter, housebuilder, planner, lender and buyer. At the moment, that confidence is under real pressure.
Housebuilders are often accused of land banking or slowing delivery. The reality is more complex. Developers are making decisions in a market where policy direction can shift, planning interpretation varies between authorities, build costs remain elevated and buyer affordability is stretched. That makes marginal sites harder to bring forward and means even good sites can take longer to commit to.
The Government has set out a clear ambition to increase housebuilding, but ambition alone will not move sites through the system. The industry needs stable policy, properly resourced planning departments and a framework that gives landowners and developers enough certainty to act. If every Budget, consultation or legislative change risks shifting viability assumptions, caution becomes the logical response.
One less discussed barrier is landowner confidence. For many landowners, selling development land is a once-in-a-generation decision. They are weighing today’s value against the risk that planning reform, local plan delay, tax change, infrastructure requirements or market movement could alter the equation within 12 months.
That hesitation is understandable. If a landowner is unsure whether now is the right moment to sell, or whether the planning environment will improve, sites can remain in limbo. The result is a slower supply of consented, deliverable land, which is precisely the opposite of what national housing targets require.
The planning system remains where policy ambition meets practical reality. Low levels of consents and starts point to a thinner pipeline, and while reforms may help over time, they do not instantly become completions. Even when decision-making improves, the lag between application, consent, discharge of conditions, infrastructure delivery and occupation can be measured in years, not months.
Local planning authorities are being asked to deliver more with constrained resources and increasingly complex policy requirements. Nutrient neutrality, water capacity, design codes, affordable housing, infrastructure contributions, viability reviews and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) all have merit in isolation. Together, they can make the process slower, riskier and more expensive.
Few in the industry object to the principle that development should contribute positively to nature, but BNG becomes a barrier to housing delivery when implementation is uncertain, inconsistent or poorly managed.
For larger schemes, BNG can often be planned into a long-term land and landscape strategy. Smaller and more constrained sites may have far less room to absorb the same requirements, particularly if expectations emerge late or local authority capacity slows assessment. In those circumstances, viability can move quickly from challenging to unworkable, which is why, while the policy objective may be sound, the delivery mechanism must be predictable enough for the market to price and programme.
Viability is sometimes treated with suspicion, as if it is simply a device to reduce obligations. In reality, it is one of the central tests of whether a site can be delivered at all. Every scheme must absorb the cost of land, construction, finance, infrastructure, affordable housing, environmental mitigation and planning obligations before a developer can judge whether the risk is justified. When build costs remain high, borrowing is more expensive, labour is constrained and sales rates are uncertain, that calculation becomes much harder. If values do not keep pace with costs, marginal sites can fall out of the pipeline altogether, reducing the supply of consented, deliverable land.
This matters because the market cannot deliver homes at scale on aspiration alone. Housebuilders need a route to planning, sale and return. Landowners need to believe the deal reflects today’s risk and tomorrow’s opportunity. Local authorities need resources to make timely decisions. Purchasers need confidence that they can afford to buy. If any one of those links weakens, delivery slows.
So, what needs to change?
Policy consistency. Housing delivery is a long-cycle business, and sites being considered today may not complete for several years. Short-term political signalling can have long-term consequences if it causes landowners, investors or developers to pause.
Planning capacity. Reform must be matched by the people and expertise needed to make it work. A faster system is not created by changing the rulebook alone; local authorities need capacity to process applications, negotiate constructively and provide clarity early enough to avoid late-stage redesign.
Cumulative regulation. Environmental standards, affordable housing, infrastructure and design quality all matter, but their combined impact must be tested against deliverability. If too many sites become unviable, the result is fewer homes and fewer benefits.
Risk realism. England does not lack housing need; it lacks enough sites moving through the system with the certainty required to unlock decisions. Landowners need confidence to release land, developers need confidence to invest, and buyers need confidence to commit.
The latest forecasts should not be read simply as evidence that the target will be missed; they are a warning that the delivery system is losing momentum. If Government wants housing numbers to become completed homes, it must focus as much on the conditions for delivery as on the target itself: clarity for landowners, certainty for housebuilders, capacity for planners, viability that reflects real-world costs and realism about how development comes forward.
Targets may set the ambition, but confidence is what will determine whether land is released, sites are funded, permissions are implemented and homes are ultimately built.