Do you remember the one about how the government was going to preside over building far more homes, boosting growth and jobs? The last government promised 1 m over five years or 200,000 annually whch it delivered after covid. The incoming government promised 1.5 million or 300,000 a year. So far instead of putting up the rate of completions, they are down.
The Chancellor was arm wrestling the so called independent OBR to give her credit for more growth ahead from more homes which were going to come from easier planning rules. The OBR need to review that decision as numbers of homes have gone down, not up.
The collapse has been biggest in London, the part of the country with the dearest homes and the biggest shortages. A Labour Mayor and a Labour government have added more expensive regulations and allowed lower targets, against their own national policy. The new rules on two staircases in mid rise blocs, on net zero standards and more outdoor space requiring balconies, have undermined the viability of new flats projects.
The big tax attack and the government inspired or regulated price surges in water, energy, rail fares, Council taxes has also meant fewer people have enough money to think about buying their first home or about trading up. The housing market is sluggish or in decline as a result.
The Housing Secretary says they are sticking with his 1.5 m target. Few commentators and builders think there is any chance of hitting it. Labour would be doing well to get back up to the last government’s build rates. No more growth here than in China.
February 2, 2026
The planning system is broken, we should have nationally agreed house plans which can be “cookie cutted” into any local development without being reviewed from scratch. The only local input should really be about the colour of external materials. We should not have local councils demanding completely custom house designs just for their area.
The building regulations enforcement, checking, signoff, and fire regulations enforcement, checking and signoff all need radically fixing. At the moment it is a hotbed of corruption with the inspectors often drinking in the pubs with the builders they are supposedly policing. We need proper impartiality enforcing, like it is for police officers and judges, same should be true of any regulator or inspector. We need regulation enforcement to become a national activity, so that independent people from other parts of the country can easily be swapped in when it looks possible the relationship between local builders and the inspectors looks too cosy. We need the name of the individual inspectors who signed off each individual house available on a public website, and we need the public to be able to complain and get inspectors sacked if they can prove substandard housing was signed off. We need fire checks to be done at the same time as building inspections, we should not have the current situation where planning can be granted, building regs signoff granted, then fire checks can veto these afterwards, the fire checks need building into the rest of the checks properly instead of as an afterthought.
We need to stop tying planning approval to provision of free or subsidised social housing, roads, and other facilities. Tax them appropriately then let those tax contributions pay for all the other stuff the public need, not via complex cross subsidies.
We need to stop funding large social housing building, and operating a state sponsored housing system which undercuts the free market, allocates housing corruptly, and which robs from decent good house buyers and tenants to subsidise people the state chooses to favour as political fashion. Encourage big reputable multi national companies to enter the housing rental market, offer long term secure tenancies, like they do in other European countries (but this needs the state to stop the big risks, like moving catchment areas to worse schools and healthcare without warning or appeal, or building heavily subsidised social housing next door to undercut them)
We need to abolish catchment areas for education and medical care, so that the massive house price differences driven simply by which school or hospital you can get access to is stopped. The state should not be rationing and allocating based on address, it should be providing resources to individuals who need it to make their own choices.
We need to stop the import of large uncontrolled, often corrupt, foreign workforces driving the quality of building down.
If you ripped out most of the state interventions, and ramped up the quality of those remaining, then house building would naturally occur in line with demand without state intervention.
February 2, 2026
Iain
You are correct, the old 106 type taxation agreement (called something else now) on new developments, is now at a staggering level, just happened to be present when a developer was explaining to a local meeting that the 14 small flats he was building for the rental market, incurs a £600,000 payment/contribution to the Council, 20% – 25% of their value, which the Council can then spend where and how they like on so called improvements elsewhere.
February 2, 2026
@iain gill – not quite correct. Most building sign-of requirements work on the basis of ‘self-certification’. Companies do their own signing off and approval, so inter authority corruption is hardly likely. It is only the small outfits engaged in small projects that need to seek approval
That of course has it problems, the Grenfell Tower situation was the contractors and the purchaser(the local council) signing off on the work as being fit for purpose when in fact they used unapproved and inappropriate materials for the job – therefore not fit for purpose. Everyone in the Building Trade knew the problem – the product had already been banned in most places as such never got near seeking approval from Building Regs. The local council wanted to save money so it appears they went cheap as opposed to fit for purpose
February 3, 2026
no some things are routinely ignored which would be stopped in other parts of the country. there are fashions in different councils about what building infringements get ignored and which are reviewed with a fine toothed comb. some fashions in the way planning is approved results in very substandard housing stock. it is very corrupt with some architects able to get permission for things other architects cannot. and the building inspectors are very definitely drunk with the very builders they are policing on a Friday night.
February 3, 2026
As the late Christopher Booker demonstrated EU regulation actually permitted the use of the materials and had not required proper fire testing for high rise applications.
February 2, 2026
With a husband that has worked in the construction industry as a whole for many decades, he has mentioned the issue of sign offs by building regulation inspectors. Their relationships with some building firms and indeed their knowledge called into question.
It is likely why many new builds have fundamental problems that should never be an issue, and some have questioned why a building has been signed off with glaringly obvious faults, bad workmanship and more besides.
Isn’t it just a sign of the general malaise here now. Lack of pride in workmanship, poor skills training, imported skills possibly not up to our standards, and money, money, money by fair means or foul.
Low expectations, low standards, mix it with some back hand shuffles and brown envelopes, and we’ve reached the 3rd world standards so many seemed keen to bring us to.
I think they labelled it ‘Levelling Up’
February 2, 2026
We’ve had a consolidation of big ‘Brand’ name builders (e.g. Financial Holding Companies) that has killed off the smaller, more local building firms. Once respected local ‘Family’ builders are now not much more than a way for the big ‘Builders’ to brand & differentiate their property price ranges into cheap, mid-range and premium brands. Much of the actual ‘building’ work is simply contracted out, again often to another ‘sub-set’ of large specialist contractors that exist beneath the Big Brands. The result is that competition and (most especially) quality has been driven out of the market. The “Little Boxes” that Pete Seeger sang about so long ago, is certainly here now – all these “Little Boxes made out of Ticky Tacky, Little Boxes all the same”.
I saw my son’s last house being built and told him to sell it before it got to 10 years old. I’ve never seen such dreadful workmanship (or lack of it) in all my life. The staircase was made out of scrap timber off-cuts, all invisible once clad. Even after he moved in, sockets needed re-wiring, kitchen floor tiles lifted and the gutters leaked badly. We still have a lot of Victorian housing stock in he UK in use. I’m not sure that many so-called ‘modern’ houses will last as nearly long, at least not without a lot of work.
February 3, 2026
@IanT – it is rare for big to be better. The trend is for the larger outfit to absorb the smaller so as to remove competition. The contradiction, competition as with consumer choice is the great leveller. The UK’s Competition Authority is shoddy about working for the consumers so much so what is its point?
February 2, 2026
freeze immigration then we would not need many new houses. it is that simple.
February 2, 2026
Iain
Correct again, they want to build 1,000,000 or more new houses a year, but we import 1,000,000 million extra people a year (plus dependents) so we effectivelly stand still.
They really do fail on simple mathematics, and to join up the dots !
But then we already know that given so many other failures.
February 2, 2026
Spot on Iain
February 2, 2026
Exactly.
Oh! and stop building in SE England, we’re already close to overwhelmed. Build in Scotland it’s a largely deserted and barren place.
February 3, 2026
Taxes +20% in Scotland. Can’t afford to live there if you earn your own money.
February 2, 2026
Houses aren’t being built because there are very few customers. With the increases in taxation and the flaky job market people are loathe to invest.
I live alone in a 4 bed detached with garage and would like to downsize but the stamp duty and other costs associated with moving are an enormous deterent.
Another reason for not buying is lots are being built with heat pumps, no garage or home parking etc so people aren’t interested.
February 2, 2026
Indeed no profit in building them out, as fat too much tax and red tape and little demand from people prepared to pay a profitable sales price!
February 2, 2026
@Ian Wragg – correct, you don’t spend money when there is no market for the product
February 2, 2026
Stamp duty used be be 1% top rate now up to 15% plus it kills market liquidity. If you move a lot over you life you can end up spending 60% or so of you house value in stamp duty. Where is the logic in a person who moves a lot for work having to pay so much more than someone who stays put? Job mobility is surely a good thing.
in my day you could buy a studio, then a one bed, then a small house, then a medium house, then a large house not now with SDLT at 15%+.
February 2, 2026
Keir Starmer is facing calls from Labour MPs to scrap plans to put asylum seekers in new council homes, potentially forcing the Prime Minister into another embarrassing U-turn.
Around 200 local authorities have registered interest in a pilot scheme that would fund building homes or refurbishing derelict sites for asylum seekers.
Looks like the currant crop of red wall Mps have seen past the wood for trees and are beginning to see that there jobs are on the line at the next General Election
February 2, 2026
I would imagine they get some pretty blunt comments when they knock on doors and say “can I rely on your vote.”
February 2, 2026
Do any parties still do that unless within a couple of months of an election?
‘you must be joking – go away’ is the most likely response.
February 3, 2026
It’s illegal to canvass if there is no election.
February 2, 2026
It will take a bold government to reform planning, just about every MP of all parties is a NIMBY.
February 2, 2026
If is like the NHS, MP’s in private all think it is crap, and we should copy far better systems on the continent, but they have all been convinced by their parties and focus groups that it is too hard to raise publicly. So, there is no real honest debate, everyone hides their true feelings.
February 2, 2026
None more so than those who think mass immigration is a bit of a lark, and their ‘Refugees Welcome Here’ banner waving counterparts
February 2, 2026
Good morning.
There has been a housing boom for quite sometime and our economy has grown dependent on it. I even remember ex-German Chancellor Merkel commenting on the fakeness of our economy in this regard. All to push up the mythical GDP figure and keep interest rate payments and government Bond repayments down, allowing governments to keep overspending as they do.
With a fall in GDP and the near extinction of the myth that MASS IMMIGRATION is somehow good we need a reset or, to put it another way, a recession.
Recessions are not half as bad as people think. Yes if you happen to be on the wrong end of it but, it allows an economy to weed out the weak. Witness the 1980’s. Problem is, this time we do not have much to weed out and the SCAMDEMIC did much of that for us.
We need serious cuts, especially to the welfare bill. Trouble is, we have the wrong political party in government able to do it. They have already alienated most of their once core voters and are relying on those sucking on the teat of the state for support.
Not good. Not good at all.
February 2, 2026
@Mark B – when electioneering governments use taxpayer money to incentivise new home buyers to buy, houses sell. The downside is it inflates prices that then come back to haunt us all. House builders are now hooked on this drug of governments taking taxpayers money to give to them, so much so they keep holding back for the next scheme. Remember they don’t have a full complement of regular employees to pay.
A way forward would be that building land with planning should be liable to local taxes after-all it only as its inflated value due to the local taxpayer funded infrastructure.
February 2, 2026
The “housing crisis” has been caused by two decades of mass immigration and it cannot be solved whilst we continue to have annual large-scale immigration.
We are now in a situation where housing is being built for immigrants (a majority of the British people don’t want here) and local authorities prioritise them for the housing which does become available … both social housing and new private housing, which they are buying up in order to accommodate immigrant families and the criminal migrants.
Personally, I think if you are going to provide dense accommodation in London (ie flats) then balconies are desirable and it is probably a good idea to have two staircases in a block of 5 or more stories. Why should people be expected to live in the equivalent of a rabbit hutch?
I hope housing targets are not met. I do not want what remains of green and pleasant England concreted over to provide housing for immigrants. I hope we get a Reform Government and many of the recent, welfare-dependent, immigrants are either deported or leave of their own volition. That will do more to solve the “housing crisis” than anything else.
February 2, 2026
Have you seen what they call a balcony? They are too small for two tiny chairs, often face another tower block so little or no sun most of the day and as often high up, can very windy. Somewhere to store the bike, and the broken washing machine if it fits before disposal!
February 2, 2026
Having the balcony space included inside the flat might well suit many owners rather better than the wet windy balcony. The other problem with these tower block flats is they often only have windows facing one way on one side of the block so you cannot open the windows to get the though draft and only get sun if any at one time of the day at best! Often far too hot in summer as a result!
February 3, 2026
Yes. I am very familiar with London.
February 2, 2026
Some still don’t ‘get it’ the major house builders have the land banks to build all the homes we need for at least the next ten years. But these are businesses drunk on taxpayer (via Governments) give-aways via incentives to the consumer to buy.
It is Government interference that has created cyclical buying, electioneering ego for all politicians is to meddle manipulate and be seen to do things, while doing nothing. Drunk on power but powerless and an utter refusal just to simply manage the things, the unglamorous things, like the framework to allow others to reach potential.
Building will start to move forward once the chatter and the electioneering stops. Even Planning isn’t the hold up as it is sold by political ego, that’s just ego saying ‘I’ will change things. When in reality it is code for I will wreak things
Year on Year volumes in the Building Trade were up just 0.8% trending as static.
February 2, 2026
Why Trump so over-rated.
Vast majority of Brits – including Conservatives – would much rather live in the UK than the US. America is generally such a crazy, stressful, humourless place compared to the UK. And it’s average higher GDP per capita is just not worth the more peaceful (in every) sense way of life than here in the UK. Trump has got the EU to spend more on military. This is good. But it’s not that much of a big deal in how that affects the average person’s sense of well-being. He’s tackled immigration but hasn’t offered up any solution to how to make the existing population more productive which the American economy needs. But Trump has greatly increased the atmosphere of craziness, stress, division in the USA which is why overall he’ll go down as a terrible president. Even worse is Putin. Who’d want to live in Russia? Or China (compared to the UK).
Despite all our problems, the UK is still a vastly better country to live in than the USA (and Russia and China). We should be more grateful and cheerful about that and be wary of grass greener on the other side. Grass is far greener here!
February 3, 2026
The UK USED to be a far better country to live in than the USA.
But that was quite a few decades ago, before the mass “enrichment” turned large parts of the country into the 3rd world with all the problems of a 3rd world country.
February 2, 2026
I see reported in the Telegraph that the British countryside will be made into a less “white environment” under nationwide diversity plans being enforced by regulatory incentives by Defra. Councils have been forced to commit to diversity targets. Targets are being set to employ more “diverse” staff. Special measures are being funded to attract people “with protected characteristics” ie not the white working classes.
I look forward to similar measures to enforce diversity in Kings Health Birmingham, Bradford, Slough, Brent, Tower Hamlets by attracting white people in? and special measures to employ and house more white people?
Or is replacement of white people nationally the goal?
February 3, 2026
and where was this crazy approach in any manifesto?
February 2, 2026
(And lastly, even if, in a perfect world, we fixed all our political and economic problems and got rid of WOKE there would still be people unhappy about the UK – it would never be good enough even though it already is good enough and we should be enjoying what we have far more, and happy about it, whilst, at the same time, working hard to improve things too)
February 2, 2026
In other words this labour government just can’t get anything done or done right.
All we get are oppressive new laws that were not mentioned or thought about before labour got into power. You have to wonder who or what is guiding them on their destructive path, so busy are they bringing in 15 minute cities, assisted suicides, digit IDs, digital money, and a host of other things that nobody needed, no wonder they can’t build new homes.
February 2, 2026
Evict this government to allow more space.
February 2, 2026
Sir
As you say, the current Government promised 1.5m new homes over its 5 year life. 300k per annum equates to a new home every 2 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This was always difficult to believe, particularly in the apparent absence of a “plan”. I understand the target focuses on England as housing is a devolved matter in other parts of the UK.
A quick internet search tells me there have been 275,600 net additions in the Government’s first 16 months. Unless the Government significantly improves its economic performance, I think it likely the current rate of building will slow down.
Other contributors have commented on the basic economics, supply and demand. Not enough homes and too many people. It is disappointing that successive Governments have encouraged a significant increase in population before the infrastructure has been put in place.
February 2, 2026
Lynn, I was getting a bit personal. Apologies. All the best.
February 2, 2026
The result of this governments ambition has been felt at local council level. The previous land supply for new houses was a hard target to meet and has been for many years then this hopeless government has vastly increased the land supply/ housing allocation expected, which is becoming an ever unobtainable number. But there is never enough infrastructure improvements or work opportunities to support the extra families that just appear from the bigger cities well out of our district. This in turn just adds to road congestion as they travel to and from work. Maybe this government should control the increase of population until there is enough accommodation. This is happening, where I live in The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire but is also a headache for most rural areas.
February 2, 2026
I do not know if you are aware of the website, Molior, which puts out a quarterly report on London residential development? They may of course be your source for this post. Their latest report indicates that the already dire figures put out by the Mayor, may in fact be a significant overstatement.
February 3, 2026
A leading estate agent in it’s round up of the housing market observed yesterday that London prices are some 25% (I’m rounding the number) down on the high.
Why would anybody be wanting to build in London when the competition (existing property) is pretty depressed? How many Londoners would have moved, upsized, downsized etc. if they could sell? Many many frustrated people.
Even when you do have a willing seller and a willing buyer with an agreed price and funds, the process is mind numbingly slow. We agreed a sale of a property last October. Still not completed.
February 3, 2026
My younger son is hoping to buy a house in London with his partner. They are both quite highly paid and can afford to buy (so I accept that they are very fortunate) …. but they are anticipating a Stamp Duty fee of around £50,000!
I’m not surprised the market is pretty dead and prices are decreasing.
February 4, 2026
In order to recover the real price paid (price + £50k) there HAS to be house price inflation.
The Government takes it cut at every sale but retains its holding after every sale.
Can’t go on!
February 2, 2026
Building regulations are far more onerous in the UK than other countries. Fire officers can even override building regulations. For example, regulations used to allow lesser compartmentation for 2 storey houses and flats with self closing fire doors on risk rooms such as kitchens. It was thought that occupants could escape via windows or get to the staircase quickly. But fire officers could inspect at the completion and require corridors and fire doors from all bedrooms. Some local authorities are converting existing flats so that corridors take up the living room space. New developments have to be larger. Following the Grenfell disaster, where some flats were sold and kitchen fire doors removed and residents were told to stay put and be rescued, flats now have to have self closing fire doors on all rooms with a corridor to the exit.
When inspecting flats for the six month defects period, it is usually found that residents find closers to kitchens inconvenient and disconnect them. They also put stuff in corridors.
Our new two storey apartment in France has an entrance fire door and no others with an open staircase to the upper floor. However it does have an enormous bathroom for wheelchair use, which EU regulations require, as in the UK.
To say nothing about having no gas heating or cooking in new housing estates and lack of parking, as we all obey UN Agenda.
February 2, 2026
I am sure the Labour government will fudge the housing numbers by claiming multiple occupancy builds or conversions count as part of the 1.5 million new homes target.
They know they cant hit the headline figure of 1.5 million new builds in there five years because we are over 18 months into it and the numbers of new builds are down
Worse still, the number of houses built but unsold is rising as people are struggling to commit to long term mortgages and can’t afford the variable payments.
Socialism is a failure, it has proven to be a failure for all concerned except those at the top of the socialist tree. Those at the top are doing well as they always do. The easy access to state funding for them within the Public Sector ensures there is always a cohort of rich socialists filling their bank accounts. They fill with tax payer’s money which they can demand, legislate and always get.
Rachel, Angela, David, the oft absent Sir Kier and others, all snuffling round the public purse trough are doing very well…..
February 2, 2026
“Robert Jenrick
Starmer is putting his political survival ahead of the national interest
The Prime Minister once hounded British soldiers to boost his career. Now he’s going cap in hand to China to save his own skin”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/01/starmer-is-putting-his-political-survival-ahead-of-the-nati/
Just another 3 more years of sleaze to come all because Parliament doesn’t like Democracy, Elections, the Nation and its People
February 2, 2026
Stop all immigration for 3 to 5 years, and there will be no housing crisis. Our Government and MPs are so short-sighted, they can’t see the problem, and are trying to treat the effect and not the cause. As usual, they are completely out of touch with what voters want.
Labour’s ability to mess up everything they touch is why they will never build 300,000 houses a year.
My wife and I are considering downsizing as we get older, but stamp duty is a massive turnoff.
February 2, 2026
To me one of the inhibitors is in the rental market as much as the freehold and not so freehold properties in our cities. There is to much hanging onto ownership by the developers. It’s a good earner, upward only site fees (if you call them that) that come in on top of rents now also get placed on freeholders with no discussion or rights of what can be charged for.
We need more of the larger facilities to become Condominiums, meaning the ownership and managements is with the dweller. Not some corporation hiding behind a money spinner. Not against profits, even big profits but screwing people over because you can and you have better lawyers is a bit off
Things get distorted even then, as in places in London so-called Council rented accommodation is subsequently sublet. A situation was highlighted with the Grenfell Tower, some of the tenants lived elsewhere and rented their flat out, causing confusion on who was actually missing and who to compensate .
Let’s all be honest; things are in catastrophic mess everywhere. Every single moan comes down to having a Parliament not fit for purpose, its refusal to do its job is behind every calamity
February 2, 2026
‘There were 719,470 vacant dwellings in England on 7 October 2024’
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwelling-stock-estimates-in-england-2024/dwelling-stock-estimates-england-31-march-2024
‘The number of people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2024 is 4,667’
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2024/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2024
So whats the real problem ?
February 2, 2026
…and between 0.5 to 0.75 million homes listed in estate agents
February 3, 2026
The real problem is low levels of education and consequently income, such that a large number of people are not in the housing market.
Most of the houses I see for sale (I watch Northumberland on Rightmove and they send me the new listings daily) are recently built properties. Nobody wants them.
February 2, 2026
We don’t need a massive house building program we need to stop mass legal and mass illegal immigration. The urgent building program we need is to build more prisons. We also need to abandon Net Zero to call a halt to making houses unaffordable. Anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are not causing the slight warming of the planet we are experiencing as shown by the science of Happer & Wijngaarden and the UN/IPCC who calculate a mere 1.2 degrees C for a doubling of CO2, not that a slight warming is other than beneficial. Cereal production continues to rise with increasing warth and increasing levels of CO2.
February 2, 2026
“So far instead of putting up the rate of completions, they are down. ”
Of course. Reduced rate of completions reduces our CO2 emissions and helps us to achieve our NDC. Just as does converting farmland to solar panel estates.
February 2, 2026
Hi sir
John just put our homeless into the hotels that are to become vacant and let them pay a minimum rent they will have a address so will be able to get a job
The new house are for the one’s who are illegal never put anything in the system
But get all the benefits the government does not build houses
Think the sale of council houses should be stopped to keep houses available for those that need them
Especially not for MP’S ON 96.000 POUNDS Pluse a year to live in
February 3, 2026
‘The big tax attack and…price surges in water, energy, rail fares, Council taxes has also meant fewer people have enough money to think about buying their first home or about trading up.’
High costs and taxes were faced by previous generations. A working professional who bought a flat or house in the early 1980s faced the prospect of having no spare cash at all in the first ten years of a mortgage. The main difference is that Stamp Duty has been ratcheted up and is now unaffordable when added to a deposit, so that there is now a sort of class division between those have have parents who can afford to give them money to buy, and those who do not. Far fairer to put a charge on residential sales.
February 3, 2026
I looked at the premium for newbuild property compared with typical property as reported by the Nationwide house price indices. As a percentage it was highest duepring the latter 1970s and 1980s, but fell back with the Brown BTL boom as mist homes were built for that market, replacing social housing. It collapsed altogether in the financial crisis, and again in the last decade, presumably because of the emphasis on tiny boxes.
More recently the premium has widened again, doubtless fuelled by Net Zero building standards. The cost and the standards make new homes less desirable, explaining why building starts remain in the doldrums.
February 3, 2026
I’m surprised that anyone can suggest taking short cuts on fire safety.
It’s not just Grenfell there have been several similar incidents.
If you are up a tower block the fire service ladders can’t reach you.
You need a way of getting out.