The Intermediary – October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 22
RESIDENTIAL
Opinion
Devolving housing
is the easy bit
T
he decision to
pause parts of the
local government
reorganisation
programme might look
like an argument about
council boundaries, legal process and
the machinery of local government.
For housing, however, it raises a rather
bigger question. Can you devolve
housing strategy without first fixing
the machinery that has to deliver it?
There is a compelling case for
making more housing decisions
locally. Housing markets are not
national in anything other than
the broadest sense. The pressures
facing Manchester are different from
those facing Suffolk, Cornwall or
Birmingham. Affordability, tenure,
land availability, employment,
transport and demographics vary
enormously, sometimes within
remarkably small distances.
Greater Manchester has an
established Mayoral structure and
an economic geography within
which housing can be considered
alongside transport, employment and
regeneration. Manchester and Salford
have also accommodated particularly
intensive residential development
by the standards of local authorities
outside London and the South.
This provides a glimpse of what
genuinely strategic housing policy
might achieve. Rather than simply
allocating housing numbers to
individual councils, a strategic
authority can ask where homes
should be built, what infrastructure
is required to support them, and what
kind of housing the local economy and
population actually need.
The difficulty is that not everywhere
is Manchester. Furthermore, pausing
local government reorganisation
while continuing with devolution
potentially creates an unusual halfway
house. Strategic housing policy may
increasingly be determined across
larger regional geographies while
20
The Intermediary | October 2026
planning decisions, infrastructure and
service delivery continue to operate
through existing and sometimes
fragmented local structures.
That does not make devolution
wrong, but it does make evidence and
accountability considerably more
important. The first question is what
we mean when we say an area needs
more homes. Are these homes for
families or single households? Houses
or apartments? For ownership, private
rental or social rental? Where should
they be located and what happens
to the surrounding housing market
when they are built?
Delivering thousands of homes is
not necessarily successful if they are
concentrated in the wrong places
or disproportionately within a
particular tenure.
By the same token, nor should this
become an argument for restricting
housing supply to protect existing
property values. England needs more
homes and improving affordability
inevitably means addressing supply.
But policymakers should not pretend
that the existing housing market is
unaffected by decisions about the
scale, location and tenure of new
development.
Understanding outcomes
Housing is both essential social
infrastructure, and for millions of
households, their largest financial
asset, and some policymakers will be
aware that its value may be important
in funding later life care. That means
understanding the consequences of
intervention maers.
Large concentrations of apartments
can change the character of local
markets. Significant additions to
rental stock can affect rents. New
social housing changes the tenure
mix, while major development around
transport infrastructure can increase
demand and values in neighbouring
areas. None of these outcomes
is inherently good or bad. What
STEVE GOODALL
is managing director at e.surv
maers is that they are understood,
which suggests we may need to think
differently about how the success of
devolved housing policy is measured.
Traditionally, we have concentrated
heavily on inputs and outputs:
planning permissions, housing starts,
completions and affordable housing
numbers. A more sophisticated
devolved system should also examine
outcomes. What is happening to
transaction volumes? Are homes
becoming more, or less, affordable
relative to local incomes? How are
rental and capital values changing? Is
the tenure balance appropriate? Are
particular neighbourhoods absorbing
development successfully, and is
infrastructure keeping pace?
These questions require granular
property data, valuation expertise
and, crucially, independent scrutiny.
They also become more important
when political responsibility is
distributed between different layers of
Government. If a Mayor establishes
the strategy, one council determines
planning and another body is
responsible for infrastructure, it must
remain clear who is accountable when
outcomes differ from expectations.
Perhaps the pause in local
government reorganisation is useful.
It provides an opportunity to consider
what meaningful housing devolution
actually requires. Moving powers
from Westminster to regions is
relatively straightforward. Creating
the evidence, governance and scrutiny
necessary to exercise those powers well
is harder.
If housing is to become one of the
great tests of English devolution, the
question is whether local leaders,
and those scrutinising them, have
sufficient understanding of the
markets they are asked to reshape. ●
