PM aims to remove blockages in the planning system and turbocharge growth to reach targets

The Prime Minister has laid out the changes being implemented to overhaul the planning system to facilitate 1.5 million new homes being delivered over this Parliament.

Earlier this month Keir Starmer announced his government’s Plan for Change, setting the ambitious housebuilding goal.

Now, under new planning rules updated via the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), councils will be given mandatory targets, contributing to the combined aim of building 370,000 homes a year.

The plans aim to ramp up housebuilding across the country and tackle the chronic housing crisis. 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists and a record number of households – including 160,000 children – are living in temporary accommodation.

Under new planning rules, updated via the NPPF:

• Areas with the highest unaffordability for housing and greatest potential for growth will see housebuilding targets increase, while stronger action will ensure councils adopt up-to-date local plans or develop new plans that work for their communities.
• While remaining committed to a brownfield first approach, the updated NPPF will require councils to review their greenbelt boundaries to meet targets, identifying and prioritising lower quality ‘grey belt’ land.
• Any development on greenbelt must meet strict requirements, via the new ‘golden rules’, which require developers to provide the necessary infrastructure for local communities, such as nurseries, GP surgeries and transport, as well as a premium level of social and affordable housing.
• Councils and developers will also need to give greater consideration to social rent when building new homes and local leaders have greater powers to build genuinely affordable homes.

“For far too long, working people graft hard but are denied the security of owning their own home,” said Starmer.

“I know how important it is – our pebble dash semi meant everything to our family growing up. But with a generation of young people whose dream of homeownership feels like a distant reality, and record levels of homelessness, there’s no shying away from the housing crisis we have inherited.

“We owe it to those working families to take urgent action, and that is what this government is doing. Our Plan for Change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people’s pockets.

“We’re taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people.”

Under the current planning framework, just under one third of local authorities adopted a plan within the last five years and the number of homes granted planning permission fell to its lowest level in a decade.

Following consultation, areas must commit to timetables for new plans within 12 weeks. This means where a new development is built through local plans, ministers will provide local authorities with three months in which to progress local plans that are currently in development, subject to conditions that catch those which significantly undershoot the new targets.

The government is also introducing a new requirement for plans based on old targets – that are still in place from July 2026: councils will need to provide for an extra year’s supply of homes in their pipeline – six years instead of five.

Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Angela Rayner, said: “From day one I have been open and honest about the scale of the housing crisis we have inherited. This mission-led government will not shy away from taking the bold and decisive action needed to fix it for good.

“We cannot shirk responsibility and leave over a million families on housing waiting lists and a generation locked out of home ownership. Our Plan for Change means overhauling planning to make the dream of a secure home a reality for working people.

“Today’s landmark overhaul will sweep away last year’s damaging changes and shake-up a broken planning system which caves into the blockers and obstructs the builders.

“I will not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes over five years and deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

”We must all do our bit and we must all do more. We expect every local area to adopt a plan to meet their housing need. The question is where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all.”

The government says while brownfield land must continue to be the first port of call for any new development and the default answer when asked to build on brownfield should always be ‘yes’, it is also exploring further action to support and expedite the development of brownfield land in urban areas through ‘brownfield passports’.

To support councils to update their local plans and review their current greenbelt land, areas will receive an additional £100 million of cash next year that can be used to hire more staff and consultants as well as more resources to carry out technical studies and site assessments.

This is alongside increased planning fees to cover costs and an additional 300 planning officers.

The new growth focused NPPF also includes requirements to ensure homes are high-quality and well-designed without stalling growth.