A new report stresses that the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) will need to swiftly build on the ‘unlocking land’ work it has started if it is to deliver the homes the country needs.
The National Audit Office’s (NAO) latest report, Unlocking land for housing, examines whether MHCLG’s programmes to increase the supply of suitable land for housing development are supporting government ambitions to deliver 1.5 million new homes by July 2029.
The independent public spending watchdog says that since 2016, MHCLG has allocated £10.5 billion to ‘unlock land’ for an estimated 713,000 homes and is currently preparing to launch a new National Housing Delivery Fund (NHDF).
MHCLG plans to launch the NHDF to provide a single gateway to the full range of the ministry’s financial support for unlocking land and set up a housing bank created as a subsidiary of Homes England, from 1 April 2026.
Unlocking land programmes are designed to remove barriers that make sites unprofitable or unattractive enough for the market to develop without government assistance.
For the NHDF to be successful and deliver value for money, the NAO says MHCLG has a number of recommendations. These include setting out clear expected impacts, establishing long‑term evaluation and monitoring, clarifying funding priorities and being transparent about which areas are prioritised.
Further guidance includes adopting and sharing a clear risk appetite and management approach across all delivery partners.
Over the last decade, MHCLG has allocated £10.5 billion to several unlocking land programmes, intended to create capacity for 713,000 homes.
Through a variety of schemes in operation since 2016-17, MHCLG and Homes England have so far committed £8.4 billion of the £10.5 billion allocated funding to projects, of which £5.7 billion has been spent.
So far, 141 of 768 projects have completed their unlocking works, with the remainder expected to continue through to 2034. Some house building on unlocked sites will continue until 2050. Currently, 128 (36%) projects launched between 2016-2021 have completed their unlocking work, compared with 13 (3%) of those funded since 2021.
Just over 33,000 homes are known to have been built on land unlocked by MHCLG funds. However, the ministry did not set out to track the number of homes built on three of its programmes that between them aim to contribute half of the expected 713,000 homes. MHCLG is now working with Homes England to track homes built across all its funds.
Preparing land for development is complex and often delivered in stages, says the NAO, and so on occasions MHCLG’s funding only provides a portion of the funds to unlock a site or is designed to help encourage others to invest in the site to fully unlock it ready for house building.
The report highlights a number of “lessons learned” since the launch of land-unlocking programmes. These include “changing how MHCLG and Homes England work with local areas and developers, using continuous market engagement processes to allow bids to come forward when they are ready rather than meeting fixed application windows”.
The project partners have also updated how they assess projects, with a given example of “looking at whether a project supports deprived communities or has environmental benefits”.
The NAO concludes that a lot of the legacy activity will still be ongoing when MHCLG launches the NHDF, and recommends that it, alongside Homes England, ensures that this activity continues and delivers its intended benefits.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said:
“The success of the new National Housing Delivery Fund will depend on the government setting clear ambitions and priorities for investment alongside its approach to risk management, so that public spending genuinely helps unlock the homes the country needs.”
