Burnham’s council housebuilding ambition ‘risks creating postcode lottery’

Andy Burnham’s pledge to deliver the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period risks becoming a postcode lottery because there is not enough publicly owned land in the areas that need it most, according to research by specialist lender Together.

Using data from property platform Searchland, Together calculated that publicly owned brownfield land in England has capacity for between 187,000 and 207,000 homes – well short of Labour’s previously announced ambition to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes.

The analysis also found public land suitable for development is heavily concentrated in a small number of local authorities. Birmingham has the largest supply, with 185 sites capable of accommodating around 11,500 homes.

However, around two-thirds of the 20 local authority areas with the biggest housing shortfalls have little or no significant public land available for development, raising concerns that communities with the greatest need could miss out.

Together said only five authorities – Birmingham, Bristol, Bradford, Lewisham and Kirklees – combined a significant housing deficit with substantial public land holdings.

Ryan Etchells, chief commercial officer at Together, said: “Building on vacant public land is a sensible idea, but our analysis shows it can only ever be part of the answer. There isn’t enough public land to deliver a programme this size, and that’s before considering that the places with the greatest need tend to have the least land. 

“As it stands, whether this pledge reaches your community is close to a postcode lottery.”

According to Together, a third or more of the proposed programme would need to be delivered on land acquired at market value, while many publicly owned sites would still face questions over their suitability for development.

The lender added that small and medium-sized housebuilders would need to play a central role in delivering homes on smaller brownfield sites, but warned that access to development finance remained a major constraint.

Etchells said: “Making more public land available is an important part of boosting housing supply, but land alone doesn’t build homes.

“In many high-demand areas, developers also need acquisition finance to bring sites together before a scheme can get off the ground. 

“If the funding isn’t there, even the most promising sites can struggle to move from allocation to construction.”