Updates to the National Planning Policy Framework are expected
next week.
Below are relevant figures from recent Centre for Cities on the
impact of default approvals for homes near stations, plus more on
cities' housing and planning needs.
Building near stations could unlock millions of new
homes.
- There is space for up to 5 million homes in commuting
distance of 15 large UK cities (Restarting housebuilding
III, 2024)
- Building them will connect more people to jobs and
opportunities in big cities, better aligning planning with growth
- Nearly two-thirds of them are on land designated green belt
(rising to 90 per cent for London), but building all of them
still leaves 95 per cent of green belt intact
UK cities need to build more homes than they did at their
post-war peak for the UK to build 1.5 million homes by
2029.
- The UK is missing at least 4.3 million homes, having built
slower than comparable European countries for decades (The housebuilding crisis,
2023)
- Private sector development has never – under the current
case-by-case planning system since 1947 – matched rates required
to meet the 1.5m target (Restarting housebuilding
I, 2024)
- Big cities, in particular London, are set to under-deliver
their housebuilding targets by the biggest margin of all parts of
England
- London only ever built at rates close to its target of 88,000
new homes a year in the 1930s – as the latest draft London Plan admits
There is a strong case for major reform to move to a
zoning system for planning.
- France, Germany and Japan's more rules-based and spatial
planning systems grant local authorities and the public sector
more effective tools for urban densification (Planorama, 2025)
- Britain's cities would have 2.3 million more homes if built
with more mid-rising housing, like cities in France and Japan
(Flat Britain, 2025)
- Short of full planning reform, Government should encourage
more use of spatial and rules-based tools
- Croydon's SPD between 2019 and 2022 is an example of
effective local densification (Flat Britain, 2025)
Government should reform restrictive anti-supply measures
to further unlock new homes.
- Reducing minimum space standards for single-occupant flats
from 37m2 to 25m2 would bring
them into line with international comparators (Breaking the bottlenecks,
2025)
- Centre for Cities also recommends reforming dual aspect
regulations, height limits for single-staircase residential
buildings BNG rules and the Building Safety Regulator
- These reforms would make it easier to build homes and in
particular densify cities and develop brownfield sites
