“Get on and build”, the UK Government has said in a statement urging housebuilders to move fast and setting new rules
The message to housebuilders contains new mandatory housebuilding timeframes to be established before planning permission is granted, with penalties for those who fail to deliver.
Councils are also set to receive new powers to try to keep housebuilding on track.
“If you promise homes, you have to build them”
This is my message to housebuilders: get on with it.
If you promise homes, you have to build them.
As part of our Plan for Change, we’re introducing penalties if you don’t build them fast enough.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 25, 2025
The Prime Minister has tweeted alongside the announcement with a sternly-toned message, urging housebuilders to “get on with it.”
The announcement states that when a firm applies for planning permission, they must set a timeframe of delivery for the homes, and those that fail to adhere may face a ‘delayed homes penalty.’
The penalty will be worth thousands of pounds per home unbuilt.
Those found guilty of “sitting on vital land” or those “who secure planning permissions simply to trade land speculatively” may see councils acquiring the land where there is a case in the public interest, and stripped of future planning permissions.
New rules also state that new large sites (over 2,000 homes) must be mixed tenure by default, meaning at least more than 40% of homes must be affordable, citing stats that say this can nearly double build-speed.
Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “This government has taken radical steps to overhaul the planning system to get Britain building again after years of inaction. In the name of delivering security for working people, we are backing the builders not the blockers. Now it’s time for developers to roll up their sleeves and play their part.
“We’re going even further to get the homes we need. No more sites with planning permission gathering dust for decades while a generation struggle to get on the housing ladder. Through our Plan for Change, we will deliver 1.5 million homes, fix the housing crisis and make the dream of home ownership a reality for working people.”
The full list of proposed changes can be found here.
“It would help if the government provided data qualifying their concerns.”
Responses from the industry so far have been somewhat negative, with calls for statistics that the government is using to come to these conclusions, and to address the “actual reasons” that are causing low levels of homebuilding.
Neil Jefferson, chief executive at the Home Builders Federation, said: “Numerous independent reviews have concluded that home builders do not delay build out, not least the CMA’s Market Study, published only last year.
“The reality is that developers only see a return on investment when they sell homes. Having purchased land and navigated the costly and bureaucratic planning process, there is no reason not to build and sell homes.
“If we are to tackle the housing crisis, Ministers need to focus on the actual reasons as to why home building levels are flatlining, which have largely been ignored – the lack of government support for first-time buyers that is suppressing demand, and the dearth of housing associations in the market for affordable homes.
“Whilst the planning changes announced last year and the government’s ambition are very welcome, much more is needed if we are to get anywhere near the challenging target it has set.”
Richard Beresford, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said: “Housebuilders build homes. They do not sit on land they can delivery. Landowners, land promoters and developer investors might sell permissions, but this is because they are not the ones building the site out and making the finances work. It would help if the Government provided data qualifying their concerns.
“For developers to offer delivery timelines would require a rules-based planning system based on certainty, which is the opposite of the UK system. It also needs major utility, environmental and legal agreement reforms, to name a few barriers. If there are not a considerably high number of penalty exemptions, fewer homes will be built because builders will avoid the risk that planning politics over-rules reality. The biggest winners here are likely to be the lawyers.”
Rico Wojtulewicz, head of policy and market insight of the NFB, added: “When submitting a planning application, there may be more than 70 separate elements to include, and these keep increasing in number. Before any work can begin, some of these will need discharging by the council, who charge for the privilege. Industry cannot afford more bureaucracy, particularly if lawyers may be needed.
“If the government wants to fix delivery issues, it should start with councils and ensure they allocate deliverable sites informed by their local plan. What this means in practice is that if councils have a target of 2,000 homes and allocate individual sites of 700, 500, 300, 250, 100, 80, 50, and 20 homes to meet it, they should ensure sites are not blocked by water, energy or legal constraints and also have a builder attached to delivering them.
“Instead, councils often allocate sites without full planning, with lots of complex conditions to meet and to landowners or land promoters. Thy even allocate sites without any knowledge of the landowners intentions. Councils wanted plan making powers but since getting them in 1990, have made excuse after excuse as to why they are failing to meet local housing needs.
“In Southwark, of the twenty council projects we studied, the average expected delivery time was three years and average site size was 21 homes. All on sites without protracted affordable housing legal agreements and a planning process the council control.
“Focusing on one of those projects, Bells Gardens, planning was submitted in 25 March 2021 with a three year delivery expectation, Yet it still hasn’t been delivered and in February 2025, the council announced it was looking for a delivery partner. Would sites such as these receive penalties for letting down local people?
“It is a working paper, so there is much to discuss; however, we have already received considerable concerns from some of the almost 400, mostly SME housebuilders, NFB represents.
“We thank civil servants for passing on our fifty-site threshold recommendations to the new government, who appear to understand the benefits it offers SMEs. To further that support, this ‘Medium’ sized site definition needs embedding into the planning system, rather than on individual policies. And now we have a more ambitious government, we hope the government also takes our four other impact-based site size definitions on board and justified in our ‘Size Matters’ report.”
The post PM: “My message to housebuilders: get on with it” appeared first on Planning, Building & Construction Today.
