The Intermediary –- June 2026 - Flipbook - Page 67
SPECIALIST FINANCE
Opinion
Why are we still
having the same
conversations?
H
ousing delivery,
planning reform
and increasing
supply were all high
on the agenda at
UKREiiF, as they
should be. Much of what was discussed
was sensible and well intentioned. Yet
aer more than 20 years in the sector,
I found myself reflecting: why are we
still having the same conversations?
We’ve had reviews, consultations,
reforms, interventions and policy
announcements from successive
Governments. We’ve had countless
debates around housing need,
planning reform and increasing
supply. Despite broad agreement on
the challenge itself, we remain some
distance from delivering the number
of homes the country requires.
The question is no longer what the
next intervention should be, but why
decades of interventions have failed
to materially improve delivery. At
some point, we must ask whether we
are still trying to solve the problem
in the same ways and expecting a
different outcome.
From what I see, this is increasingly
not about ambition. Developers
still want to build, viable schemes
continue to aract funding, and
investment activity continues. The
bigger issue is confidence in delivery.
Developers have always adapted to
changing conditions. Over the years
that has meant navigating recessions,
rising costs, shiing demand and
changing economic cycles. What
becomes harder is commiing capital
when the assumptions underpinning
a scheme become increasingly difficult
to rely upon.
Ready to build
The challenge is no longer simply
whether a scheme is viable today, but
whether the assumptions made when
a site is acquired will still hold by the
time a developer is ready to build. That
uncertainty changes behaviour long
before construction begins.
Higher build costs, longer delivery
timescales and increasing complexity
have narrowed the margin for error
considerably. Once confidence in
the likely outcome starts to weaken,
projects take longer to commit to, sites
become more selective and developers
become far more cautious about where
capital is deployed.
We spend a lot of time talking about
planning delays, but predictability
is becoming the bigger challenge.
Developers can usually work around
delays. What becomes harder is
planning around inconsistency.
One of the striking themes at
UKREiiF was how oen developers
described very different experiences
between neighbouring authorities,
despite dealing with similar schemes.
In some cases, the inconsistency
existed within the same authority,
with different planning officers taking
different views of the same local
policies and requirements.
This is why the conversation cannot
simply be about planning resource.
Capability, continuity and consistency
maer just as much. Developers need
confidence that applications will
be assessed by experienced people
and that decisions will be grounded
in a clear understanding of what
successful delivery requires.
The challenge extends beyond
planning. The industry is regularly
asked to absorb additional cost and
complexity in pursuit of policy
objectives. Most measures are
understandable in isolation, and
introduced with positive intentions.
But developers experience them
collectively rather than individually.
NEIL LEITCH
is managing director of
development finance
at Hampshire Trust Bank
If housing delivery is going
to improve meaningfully, SME
developers will need to play a central
role, because they oen bring forward
smaller sites, infill opportunities and
local schemes that larger developers
may never pursue. Yet they are
also the businesses most exposed to
uncertainty.
Our research ahead of UKREiiF
found that 76% of SME developers
identified the planning process as a
barrier to development. Many also
expressed limited confidence about
expanding delivery over the next
12 months.
If the developers we most need to
increase delivery are becoming less
confident about bringing forward new
schemes, we should not be surprised if
housing output continues to fall short
of expectations.
Aer more than 20 years of debating
many of the same issues, I am not
convinced the industry needs another
conversation about housing delivery.
It needs more housing delivery.
The next test should not be how
many consultations are launched,
reforms announced or targets set. It
should be whether more homes are
actually delivered.
Developers still want to build,
and funding remains available for
viable schemes. The bigger question
is whether developers have sufficient
confidence in delivery to commit
capital at the scale required.
At some point, we must stop asking
whether we understand the problem
and start asking why the outcome is
not changing. More importantly, we
need to start demanding evidence that
the solutions are working.
June 2026 | The Intermediary
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