Government to miss land disposal homes target

The extent to which the government may miss its target of building 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s has been laid bare by a new report from the National Audit Office.

Last week housing minister Kit Malthouse described the 300,000 figure as “mythical”, and now an NAO report has suggested the government will miss its own target of freeing up enough land by 2025 to build 160,000 homes in England.

The report follows an NAO investigation into the government’s strategy for land disposals under its Public Land for Housing programme, which also aimed to generate £5bn through sales of unwanted public sector land.

The NAO said the government expected to deliver enough land for around 65,000 homes – 41% of its target – and was unlikely to reach the 160,000 homes target until “well after” 2025.

Land for the previous programme, between 2011 and 2015, released land to build 109,000 homes, while government figures suggested just under 39,000 homes had been brought to market on that land by March last year.

Homes brought to market during the current programme amounted to 2,700 units.

“On current projections, the government expects to have released enough land for 145,727 homes by 2025, still short of the 160,000 target to 2020,” the report said.

The Ministry of Defence and the Department for Transport had the greatest shortfall between their targets and projected sales, it added.

The NAO report said land identified by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) was often still being used by public sector bodies to provide services and disposals would depend on policy decisions.

Planning delays were also an issue, as was site decontamination before a sale could be progressed.

And the government still needed to sell off more than £1bn of land to hit its target of £5bn, having sold assets such as the Old War Office for £357m in 2016 and Network Rail’s offload of its arches earlier this year for £1.46bn.

Responding to the NAO’s report Malthouse  said: “We have an urgent mission to build more homes for the next generation so they can realise the dream of home ownership. The latest figures show us delivering 222,000 new homes, more than in all but one of the last 31 years.

“Government departments have identified enough surplus public sector land for 160,000 new homes and our development accelerator Homes England is providing expert assistance to get these properties built more quickly.”

Matthew Good, planning director at consultant WYG, said the failure of the 2015-20 programme to deliver upon its targets was “a stark reminder of the difficulties of bringing housing land to the market.

“It also raises questions over the feasibility of the government’s ambition to deliver 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s.”

Good said planning delays, land contamination and disposal for other uses were well-known problems for those working in the planning profession.

“The promotion of housing sites from first inception to delivery is a protracted process, fraught with difficulties and uncertainty.

“This is not assisted by the often glacial progress of local plans or the difficulties in negotiating the planning application process, both of which are the domain of chronically underfunded and under-resourced planning departments,” Good added.

After Malthouse told a gathering of architects in London that the 300,000 target was “mythical” the MHCLG responded by saying the figure was “ambitious but achievable”.