The key publications draw on expertise of our members to research and spotlight the issues of the day

How has the thing we need most become unaffordable? 

A new report by The Housing Forum answers the all-important question: How much does it cost to build a house?

The Housing Forum, is a cross-sector body for the construction and housing sector and became aware of concern across the sector about the rising costs of building new homes. The high inflation seen over the last few years has had a particularly severe effect on construction and is having a long-term impact on costs, with delays and uncertainty in the planning system exacerbating the issue.  

We therefore pulled together data from across our membership base – who between them span the whole process of building a house – from manufacturing the component parts, designing it, obtaining planning permission, building it and ultimately selling or managing the new home.  

The road map presents a timeline of policy change and funding needed for the housing sector to meet the government’s ambitious housing goal of 1.5 million homes. It highlights the need to deliver ambitious planning reform, including properly resourcing the planning system, reviewing green belt land particularly around London, and funding infrastructure and regeneration on brownfield sites.  

The Housing Forum Futures Network surveyed and interviewed Housing Forum members, to identify the current and future challenges around skills shortages, including hiring, training and retention, from across the whole of the housing and construction sector.

This report lays out the extent of evidence required to submit a planning application, and raises questions of whether the planning system is the right ‘home’ for all of these checks.

This report notes that the planning system “is not currently working as well as it should be” and sets out a roadmap for how the it can be improved, helping highlight solutions to:
- Build support for new housing and harness the benefits of planning 
- Reduce burdens and improving efficiency, and  
- Address staff shortages and improving skills.  

The Housing Forum's Futures Network created the Route Map for New Home Delivery to map out how different organisations and activities come together to deliver new homes.

The intended audience is everyone working across the housing sector – most of whom are familiar with only some of the stages of the process. The aim was to produce a document that could be used as part of the induction process for people new to their companies and to provide everyone with a better understanding of how their role plays its part alongside others in building new homes.