In a speech yesterday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government will overhaul the planning system to increase the number of properties being built, with a focus on affordable housing.
Read on to find out more about the government's housebuilding plans, and whether they could help you get on to the property ladder.
Government announces housebuilding plans
In her first speech as Chancellor, Rachel Reeves confirmed the government's plans to 'get Britain building again'.
Reeves has reiterated this target, and provided further details about how the government plans to achieve it.
She outlined a series of measures to increase the number of homes being built, including:
Reeves said the government will also review green belt boundaries, and prioritise brownfield and 'grey belt' land for development.
Find out more:Where will the new homes be built?
Debates around housebuilding often focus on the use (or lack thereof) of green belt and brownfield land.
The green belt was introduced in 1947 as a method of limiting the growth of large urban areas. Around 12% of land in England is designated as green belt, and is protected from development.
Brownfield land is classified as 'previously developed land'. This definition is wide-ranging, but it usually means sites that have previously been used for non-residential purposes, for example industrial buildings or offices, which are potentially now available to be developed on again.
What is the 'grey belt'?
The government is seeking to introduce a third category of land for development, called the 'grey belt'. This term is new, having been coined by Labour last year.
Labour has previously described the grey belt as 'ugly land' in green belt areas, which it wants to free up for development.
It says the current rules are a barrier to this. It uses an example of a disused petrol station in north London where a housing development was blocked due to the site being designated as green belt land.
In an analysis published earlier this year, the estate agent Knight Frank identified around 11,000 of these kinds of sites in England.
Find out more:How has the industry reacted to the plans?
The housebuilding industry has welcomed the government's plans, with Barratt Developments, Bellway Homes and Berkeley Group all reacting positively.
The Home Builders Federation said it is ready to support the plans with 'investment, job creation and the new homes the country needs'.
The National Federation of Builders described the moves as the 'first step to restoring new housing supply, supporting builders and stopping hundreds of millions being wasted on bureaucracy'.
However, the government's plans to introduce compulsory housing targets for councils have concerned local leaders.
Liz Leffman, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said local authorities should be responsible for 'assessing where housing needs to go, with input from residents', and cited the importance of enough infrastucture being in place before developments are approved.
Is 1.5 million new homes a realistic target?
The government's plan to build 1.5 million new homes in England, around 300,000 a year for the next five years, is ambitious.
Assessing current housebuilding levels is difficult, with various statistics on planning permissions, new dwellings started and finished, and sales. In part, this is why we so often see instances of a government claiming to have hit its targets, and opposition parties claiming it hasn't.
As a guide, 231,000 Energy Performance Certificates were issued on new homes in England and Wales combined in 2023, down 8% year-on-year. This means housebuilding would need a significant bump to reach the new government's target.
Concerns about information sharing
Importantly, the government won't be directly commissioning housebuilding. Instead, the plans are to free up land and regulations to enable private developers to build more homes.
However, concerns have been raised around the current system, where a handful of large developers built the vast majority of houses.
In February, the Competition and Markets Authority opened an investigation into the 'suspected sharing of commercially sensitive information' by housebuilders, which it said may be influencing the building of new developments and prices of properties.
Find out more:What might the plans mean for first-time buyers?
The government wants 'grey belt' developments to have at least 50% affordable housing, including properties let for below market rent.
However, it's important to remember that new-build homes are usually more expensive than existing ones - and, crucially, that developers will only want to build what they can sell and make a profit on.
This means that how the government goes about incentivising developers to build more homes, and enabling first-time buyers to purchase them, will be key to the success of the policy.
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