Most councils have granted enough planning permissions to meet Government-set targets – but many aren’t resulting in new housing

Barely half of homes granted planning permission since 2012-13 have actually been built, a survey has revealed.

In four out of five councils surveyed, the number of homes with planning permission which are unbuilt exceeds the number of homes demanded in the Government’s new, more demanding housing targets.

The survey by the Local Councils Network – formerly known as the District Councils’ Network – sheds unique light on the reasons for the difficulty in hitting the Government’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes this parliament.

Of the 62 councils that provided data, permission has been granted for 633,010 units of housing since 2012-13. However, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government figures suggest that only 331,300 new dwellings were completed in that period. This suggests a build-out rate of 52%. These figures exclude consents still requiring a section 106 agreement.

Over these council areas, over 200,000 homes have current, valid planning permission but construction is yet to begin. In these council areas:

• 200.5k homes have valid planning consent but are not yet started
• 186.5k homes are required to be built by the end of this parliament under the Government’s new housing targets announced in December 2024
• 168.3k homes were completed in the past five years
• 29.3k homes were completed in the past year.

The survey also asked councils to identify the reasons that housing with planning consent was not being built in their area. The top four reasons, in order, were: viability (including profitability and land values); market demand; the behaviour of developers or landowners; and infrastructure constraints.

In response to the findings, Cllr Richard Wright, Chair of the Local Councils Network, said:

“This clear evidence that our member councils are approving twice as many homes as are actually built undermines claims that the planning system is the cause of low house-building rates.

“The biggest barriers to new homes are viability, market conditions, developer behaviour and failure to install electricity, water or transport infrastructure.

“With construction never starting on hundreds of thousands of approved homes, even a modest improvement in build-out rates would make a significant contribution towards meeting national and local housing targets.

“We want to work with developers, infrastructure providers, our partners in local and national government and of course our communities to remove the blocks to new much-needed new housing which is appropriate to local needs.

“Asking councils to approve even more housing applications, when we already approve about nine in every 10, is missing the point to a complex problem.”