New housing targets – buckle up, it’s going to get bumpy

The launch of the revised NPPF affirms the drive to grow the economy with a further target of 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament. Ambitious? Certainly. Achievable? Doubtful.

The new mandatory housing targets will see an increase of permissions in Suffolk of 64%, up from a previous target of 3087 to 5071 per year, with East Suffolk and Babergh facing eye watering 82% and 86% increases respectively. It begs the question; if the old national target of 300,000 homes could not be met, how are we supposed to achieve this new target? And will the good folk of Suffolk be able to afford the new houses given that the average house price is now over eight times the average income?

We haven’t seen this scale of housing delivery since the post war period, when social housing was something that the state provided rather than relying on a handful of developers. Lest we forget; councils do not build houses anymore, developers do.

We need housing, and we need it fast. So why is the focus not on the 1 million homes that are already consented and not being built out? Why are we not seeing more to resource social housing, where the chronic shortage is most acutely felt? Why are the estimated 1.5 million empty homes not being brought back into use?

And meanwhile the House Builders Federation points out that we have a massive skills shortage and not enough trades to meet these targets, citing a shortage of at least 20,000 bricklayers.

And the associated infrastructure: jobs, transport, water, doctors and schools? Is there enough government commitment to deliver the fundamentals that underpin successful development? Time will tell.

The planning system cannot simply be cranked up to deliver such fantastical numbers without a willing development industry, a robust supply chain, and a commitment to fund the necessary infrastructure – which simply aren’t there. Which is why the new targets for housebuilding in Suffolk look, frankly, unachievable.

So yet again, we must face the realities of the presumption in favour of development, or “tilted balance” where site allocations to deliver ever larger numbers of homes will become harder to find than ever, and planning authorities will almost certainly not be able to meet their targets.

On the upside we don’t have any green (or grey) belt in Suffolk, but then again, we don’t have much brownfield land either. So, it is time to get ready for the green, green fields of home coming under increasing pressure from our developer friends.

Buckle up, it is about to get bumpy.