Twenty years after the Barker Review of Housing Supply, Dame Kate Barker lends her expertise to a new report on England’s housing crisis. But has much changed since 2004?
The Government must build 1,000 homes each day for the next five years to meet its promise to deliver 1.5 million homes by 2029. The report, Beyond the Permacrisis – Delivering 1,000 Homes a Day, contains fifteen recommendations that will help the Government meet this target and a blueprint for long-term sustainable growth in the housing sector.
The report was published in October 2024 by the Radix Big Tent Housing Commission (RBT). The recommendations, among others, include:
- Facilitate the release of public sector land for housing;
- Reform the current system of developer contributions through Section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL);
- Recognise the importance of rental tenures to the wider housing mix and support the broadest range of tenures and delivery models; and
- Agree a prompt rent settlement that provides income security for Registered Providers and provide an enlarged Affordable Housing Programme from 2026.
Beyond the Permacrisis addresses many of the same issues identified in the Barker Review. However, these issues have worsened over time.
Demand for affordable housing continues to dwarf supply and rental unaffordability is expected to peak in 2024. RBT also notes that the output and number of active housebuilders are steadily declining.
This raises the question: if the current issues with the housing market were identified in 2004, and solutions were proposed in 2004, then why has the crisis become a ‘permacrisis’?
Alex Notay became Chair of the Commission after Dame Kate Barker was appointed to the New Towns Taskforce. She answers this question in the foreword.
Alex Notay considers that a ‘fractured and inconsistent ownership and governance around implementation’ stunted the Barker Review’s long-term impact. Of the 2004 recommendations, eleven are active, ten are partially implemented, and five were implemented and then reversed. The other ten were never actioned.
RBT finds that a long-term vision for structural change, resilient to political shifts, is necessary to ease the housing permacrisis. They recommend establishing independent bodies to oversee effective collaboration between government departments and LPAs, and to monitor policy implementation.
The recommendations include making Homes England a ‘master developer’, forging a Cross-Party Accord for policy consensus, and establishing a Housing Delivery Unit and an Independent Statutory Housing Committee.
‘Housing is national infrastructure’
The reports share the rationale that housing is national infrastructure. This means that strategic planning goals should be shared across the housing ecosystem, and housing should be delivered in tandem with infrastructure projects.
The goal is to address and prevent barriers to development while ensuring a coordinated approach to strategic planning.
This includes greater collaboration across all key bodies in the housing ecosystem, including private utility providers, mayoral authorities, LPAs, and National Highways.
Additionally, the proposed Housing Delivery Unit would have the authority to overturn LPA decisions and support devolved authorities in aligning Local Growth Plans with an overarching UK Housing Strategy.
Reforming the planning system
Beyond the Permacrisis provides a route for reforming the planning system to address the decline in active housebuilders and their output. The proposals seek to accelerate the process from approval to commencement while reducing administrative and financial burdens on developers. This ought to catalyse SME housebuilders since they are the most affected by these burdens.
Proposals include:
- Reducing the informational requirements in planning applications;
- Enabling LPAs to issue split decisions on proposed developments.
- Requiring LPAs to publish standard conditions, common obligations, and standardised S106 agreements;
- Loosening restrictions around design guidance, removing duplications between the planning and building regulation systems, and simplifying the processes for assessing nature-based impacts; and
- Rebuilding capacity in the public sector by improving LPAs’ access to a wide range of specialist expertise and planning skills.
The recommendations are commendable, in particular, the recognition that housing policy requires cross party accord. The proposal for Homes England to act as a ‘master developer’ is already underway with the recent announcement of the Made JV, a joint venture between Homes England, Barratt and Lloyds Bank. We look forward to seeing the impact this will have on unlocking infrastructure and delivering housing numbers.
However, the authors emphasise that more efficient housing delivery processes cannot be a substitute for increased funding and new revenue streams.
As always, it will take time for changes to work through the system. In the meantime, housing delivery continues to face constraints due to practical challenges such as building safety and second staircase requirement and development viability amongst others.
You can read the report here.