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More than 420,000 UK homes remain unbuilt despite planning permission being granted
The amount of unbuilt homes, despite having received planning permission, has risen exponentially in the last twelve months, according to data collated by the Local Government Association, with more than 420,000 waiting to be built despite the UK suffering a chronic housing shortage.
Councils across the UK had approved around 90% of planning applications; however, sites are being left undeveloped as developers have failed to erect the properties fast enough, with very little options at the council's disposal in terms of stepping in to speed things up.
The backlog of 423,544 homes waiting to built marked a 16% increase from the year before, when the number of unimplemented planning permissions was 365,146, with its figures also showing that it now takes an average of 40 months from planning permission being granted to building work being completed, eight months longer than in 2013/14.
The LGA, which represents 370 councils across England and Wales, said the new study revealed the need for councils to be granted stronger measures to take action on undeveloped land with planning permission, such as making it simpler to make compulsory land purchases where homes remain unbuilt, and the ability to charge developers full council tax on every unbuilt development as soon as planning permission expires.
Martin Tett, a spokesman for the LGA, said, "These figures prove that the planning system is not a barrier to house building. In fact, the opposite is true. In the last year, councils and their communities granted twice as many planning permissions as the number of new homes that were completed."
"Our national housing shortage is one of the most pressing issues we face. While private developers have a key role to play in solving our housing crisis, they cannot meet the target of 300,000 houses built a year set by the Government on their own," he added.
Previous studies suggested that the extremely high volume of homes going unbuilt in Britain was due to developers and landowners practising "land banking" - where they would sit on land, waiting for it to increase in value.
Chancellor Philip Hammond announced plans for a review into land banking as part of the 2017 budget, the fifth such review on the matter in the last 13 years, every single one of which had concluded that housebuilders were not engaging in the practice.