Planning for social housing

The government has said the planning system is ‘broken’ and needs to be ‘rewired’ to accelerate infrastructure delivery and homebuilding. The tool they are using to do this is the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is currently going through Parliament. The government is right: the planning system hasn’t worked to build the homes we need – social rent homes.

Social rent homes are the only type of home where rent is linked to local incomes. This means they remain affordable over time – and this is why building more is the only solution to end the housing emergency.

In 2023/24, private developers delivered only 3,870 homes for social rent, representing 1.73% of new homes delivered. Meanwhile, over 127,000 households were living in temporary accommodation. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill represents a critical opportunity to provide the social homes needed to change this.

Our analysis suggests that at least 24,000 social homes per year can be delivered through private developer contributions if the rules are changed to make sure these homes are prioritised and developers are made to build their fair share.

What needs to change

We are supporting three key changes in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that will build the social rent homes we need:

1. Minimum 20% of social rent homes across all developments

‘Developers and council in disagreement on number of social homes’ – how many times do we see headlines like this a week? Legal agreements between developers and local authorities about the number of social and affordable homes to be built (‘section 106’ agreements) are often slow, complicated and can be later completely avoided or reduced through ‘viability loopholes’.

We think it's vital that this process is quicker, clearer and builds the homes required to end the housing emergency. Our amendment would:

• simplify this process by requiring ‘on-site delivery’ of social housing

• establish a minimum 20% social rent homes baseline, where a higher baseline doesn’t already exist.

These two changes would mean developers build more of the social rent homes we need, quicker.

2. Social rent homes rather than other types of affordable housing

The average deposit for a shared ownership home last year was over £22,000, yet shared ownership is classed as ‘affordable housing’. This means developers are still building unaffordable homes as part of their ‘affordable housing’ contributions.

We believe this should change: where private developers deliver affordable homes, it should primarily mean social rent because that's what we actually need to end the housing emergency.

To do this, we’re suggesting the above minimum baseline of 20% is made up solely of social rent homes – using the Regulator of Social Housing definition of social rent.

3. Ensuring councils properly assess housing need

How do we know what homes to build? Local authorities are meant to assess exactly what homes they need to provide. However, right now, the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness are not taken into account.

The current method produces an underestimate of need by only counting ‘units’ or homes. It does not account for the full range of local housing needs, as it ignores:

• many local people experiencing homelessness – including more hidden forms of homelessness, such as people sofa surfing and people who are homeless on the streets but missed by the method used in official rough sleeping counts

• the number of local people on housing waiting lists

• the number of local people in overcrowded homes

We have partnered with homelessness charity Crisis to push for an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. This would require planning authorities to calculate the amount of social and affordable housing needed by the population, considering all people who are homeless in the area.

This would mean local authorities would have a much better idea of how many social rent homes are required to provide genuinely affordable homes for those facing or at risk of becoming homeless.

Please get in touch

Right now, the planning system hasn’t built the genuinely affordable social rent homes we’ve needed for decades. We’re playing catch-up, and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill is an important opportunity to make sure social housing delivery is fast, simple and in the right places.

Read our full briefing on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill

If you’d like to hear more about our amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, please contact public_affairs@shelter.org.uk.