Think tank recommendations to boost government housebuliding

A new briefing by Centre for Cities, titled Breaking the bottlenecks: 'Reforming 'anti-supply measures' to support urban housebuilding', sets out five anti-supply measures that the think tank urges the government to adopt, should it wish to reach its target of building 1.5 million new homes.

Centre for Cities asserts that these five measures would improve the supply of new housing everywhere, especially in large cities, and increase opportunities for first-time buyers to get onto the housing ladder.

The reforms include reducing the minimum one-person space standard from 37m2 to something more in line with other international standards like Japan (24m2) or the Netherlands (18m2), as well as allowing the installation of air conditioning as a means to comply with building regulations to help with overheating.

Other measures include revisiting the dual staircase requirement for all buildings above 18 metres to bring single-staircase height limits back to the government's original proposals (30m), reducing the number of planning applications required to pass through Geways 2 and 3, and decrease prices for contributions int he Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) credit system.

Andrew Carter, chief executive of Centre for Cities, said: "Government has made great strides on planning reform which will increase housebuilding, especially in the shires.

"Accelerating housebuilding in big cities will be more difficult but is essential if the government is to reach its target of 1.5 million new homes.

"We've identified give clear areas where planning considerations and stipulations on builders limit the scale and pace of development on many suitable sites in cities. There are safe and practical workarounds available and if implemented could boost the economic growth outcomes of the planning reform agenda."