Long overdue proposals for a “coherent” housing and infrastructure plan are holding back the government’s target of building 1.5 million homes, a parliamentary report has said.
The scheme “appears to have been kicked into the long grass” despite its importance to the government’s housing plan, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Excellence in the Built Environment said in a new report, called Proud to Call Home.
The APPG said the plan is necessary to speed up property construction and that without it, the 1.5 million housing target faces quality and speed constraints.
The UK needs a “comprehensive national housing plan” to align land release, planning capacity, skills, consumer standards and infrastructure investment, including provision of electricity distribution and water supply, the APPG said.
But it warned the housing strategy is “overdue” after it was first trailed alongside the Spending Review in 2024, and then addressed in multiple written statements last year but it is still yet to appear.
The APPG said meeting the homes target will rely on “every department playing its part in a single plan”, and that the roadmap is necessary to clarify each department’s role.
“We firmly believe that without one cross-Whitehall timetable and accountability framework, these interdependencies will continue to slow programmes and erode quality on site,” it said.
The report said funding from the Treasury, grid capacity from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ wastewater connections must all be aligned with housing outcomes.
The APPG also called on the Department for Transport to sequence transport and said the Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions must expand construction skills and apprenticeships.
“A clear, dated strategy would give councils, communities, Homes England, the industry and investors the certainty to plan, sequence and deliver, anchoring quantity to quality from the outset,” the APPG said.
The APPG is chaired by Mike Reader (pictured), Labour MP for Northampton South and a former Mace director, who is also the government’s construction champion.
In his introduction to the report, Reader said the government “must focus on building communities, not just delivering housing estates”.
“We heard too many times that supporting infrastructure for new homes is delivered last, late or never at all,” he added.
In addition, the report has also called on government and local authorities to give “more weight” to design guidance promoting high-quality placemaking.
It also recommended legislation requiring local authorities to spend developers’ contributions within their agreed time or risk losing the funds.
More financial support for the modern methods of construction (MMC) sector is also needed, it said, to ensure a “steady pipeline” of work.
It also called for planning passports to accredit MMC systems alongside developing design code guidance or national standards to support it.
England should also introduce a GCSE for the built environment – following the example of Wales and Northern Ireland – to tackle the sector’s skills problems, the APPG said.
Construction News approached the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for comment.
