The government’s planning reforms will transform housebuilding in England. Across the country, more homes will be built near train stations, in well-connected communities and on small sites where buildings already exist. These changes were previously recommended by the Fabian Society, and they could result in more than 1.8m additional homes. Delivering just a proportion of these would be an enormous and welcome step towards meeting the government’s 1.5m new homes target.
After two waves of change, the government has indicated it will pursue stability for planning rules over the second half of this parliament. The focus must therefore shift to ensuring that planning permissions translate into actual homes being built at scale, and that they are high quality. This is the topic of a new edited collection released by the Fabian Housing Centre, Beyond Numbers: Building Great Places to Live.
The 1.5m new homes target isn’t just an abstract number to hold the government to account. It will matter for millions of people for decades. It will transform the living standards, health, wellbeing and life chances of communities across the country. But that requires these homes to be desirable homes that are built to last and able to meet the changing housing needs of the country as we head towards the 2050s.
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First, these homes need to be accessible. Housing needs will inevitably change as England ages and the task of cutting carbon emissions grows even greater.
The number of people aged 55 and over is expected to increase by five million over the next 25 years, reaching 23 million people in 2050. Homes will need to be adaptable and accessible as people age so that everyone can live well and independently in their own home for longer.
Second, they need to be energy efficient. By 2050, the country must reach net zero – a seismic change that will impact new and existing homes, which currently account for 17 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficient homes today save money through lower bills, and avoid the higher costs homeowners would otherwise have to pay for retrofitting in the future.
However, our existing housing stock is ill-suited to changing housing needs. Just 13 per cent of all homes are ‘visitable’ by someone who is disabled, regardless of age. Around a quarter of new builds are ‘accessible and adaptable’ – a higher standard that ensures they are suited for disabled and older people as their needs change. While homes today are built to higher energy efficiency standards than older existing properties, they are often still built without adequate insulation, without solar panels, and with gas boilers instead of heat pumps.
As housebuilding ramps up over the rest of this parliament, the government must ensure we are building homes that meet the needs of the future and replace unsuitable properties that already exist. This will require careful prioritisation, so that higher quality homes do not undermine the viability of developments and risk missing the 1.5 million target.
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To improve accessibility the government’s priority should be to ensure that every new home is accessible and adaptable, as previously recommended by the Fabian Housing Centre and Centre for Ageing Better. This standard is higher than the current ‘visitable’ requirement, which often leaves properties inaccessible for those who are disabled and means they are unable to be adapted for changing needs. It is something that the previous government announced, but never delivered.
The government should amend their proposed minimum of 40% of new homes built over the lifetime of a local plan to be accessible and adaptable. Such a low target falls short of what is needed for more people to live at home safely and independently for longer. Delivering hundreds of thousands of accessible and adaptable homes each year would dramatically improve people’s quality of life and reduce demand for NHS and social care services. It would lead to few accidents that require hospital stays, and enable people to live with less or no support from carers.
To address energy efficiency, the government should bring forward the new Future Homes Standard, which seeks to improve the energy efficiency of new builds and reduce emissions. Ministers have already announced that solar panels will be required where it is feasible, alongside low-carbon heating such as heat pumps, and high levels of energy efficiency.
The focus of this standard should be on improvements that will lead to even lower energy bills – without deterring housebuilding by adding too many costs to development. Otherwise, low rates of new homes being built would mean that families remain stuck in old, energy inefficient and expensive to heat homes, no matter what the new Future Home Standard requires. And as developers think about seizing the benefits of planning reform, they need to know what will be expected under this Standard as early as possible – even if full implementation is likely to be from 2027.
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Over the next few years, the government’s planning reforms will mean hundreds of thousands more homes being built across England. These are places that will define our lives; where children will grow up and families will grow old. And long after the next election, they will stand as a visible legacy of this government’s ambition. Their quality will be a testament to our values. The government must ensure this legacy is one our nation can be proud of.
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