Missing the target and missing the point

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

A year into the government’s five-year target to build 1.5 million additional homes and signs of progress are thin on the ground.

Indicators of new  supply published on Friday estimate that 231,300 net additional homes were delivered in the just over 14 months between the start of the parliament on 9 July 2024 and 14 September 2025. 

At this rate, the government will struggle to hit one million additional homes in this parliamentary term, let alone 1.5 million.

Worse still, the supply indicators are currently moving in the wrong direction. In the first quarter of 2025/26 (April to June), building control reported completions were down 5 per cent on a year earlier while the number of energy performance certificates (EPCs) issued for new dwellings was down 14 per cent.

Further back in the pipeline, the number of homes granted planning permission fell 7 per cent in the year to the end of June to 221,000, the fourth annual decline in succession. 

The estimates published by the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government provide a more accurate picture of new housebuilding than the familiar starts and completions figures and a more timely one than the net additional dwellings statistics that form the basis of the target.

The official figures on net additional dwellings for 2024/25 will not be published until November but MHCLG estimates (based on EPCs for new dwellings but allowing for demolitions) that the annual total will be 199,300. That’s just over 100,000 below the annual rate required to hit the target.