Central to her address was planning reform. This is what I have been personally waiting to hear, and what I asked for in an article I wrote back in January: namely that planning reforms are not a ‘nice to have’ but an ‘absolute must’.

This simple statistic tells you everything you need to know about the current state of our planning system. Local authorities meet deadlines for minor planning applications in 10% of cases and only 1% process major applications within the legal 13-week time limit.

Unsurprisingly, she did not pull her punches: “Planning reform has become a byword for political timidity in the face of vested interests and a graveyard of economic ambition. Our antiquated planning system leaves too many important projects getting tied up in years and years of red tape before shovels ever get into the ground.”

Soon after this statement of intent to reform planning, the King’s Speech to the Houses of Parliament went into more detail, announcing the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill, aimed at “unlocking more housing”. Afterwards a briefing document was published clarifying that the Bill will “speed up and streamline the planning process to build more homes of all tenures and accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects.” It also went on to say that local planning decision making would be improved by “modernising planning committees.”

Echoing the chancellor’s desire to bolster planning officer numbers nationally by 300, the brief added that local planning authority capacity would be boosted to “improve performance and decision making, providing a more predictable service to developers and investors.”

Developers across England and Wales (and perhaps Scotland if the Bill is extended) will have raised a glass to the plans to reform the rules concerning compensation from Compulsory Purchase Orders to ensure that it is “fair but not excessive”, and not based upon ‘hope value costs’. The note added, “the reforms will help unlock more sites for development, enabling more effective land assembly, and in doing so speeding up housebuilding and delivering more affordable housing, supporting the public interest.” The new, England Devolution Bill will also support regional development giving new powers to metro mayors and combined authorities.

Of course, we all want to see a quicker and simpler planning process with robust local decision making, and more details of the reform were announced at the end of July by Angela Rayner. This included plans to allow councils to approve housebuilding on poor quality sites such as brownfield and areas of the green belt – the so-called ‘grey belt’ – as well as restoration of mandatory housing targets. The reintroduction of housebuilding targets was also a key commitment of the Labour Party manifesto, namely to build 300,000 new homes a year or 1.5 million over a five year term.

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While this has to be applauded, with the prime minister repeatedly promising that his new government will be “builders not blockers”, our track record isn’t encouraging.

In 2023, 231,100 homes were built while an estimated 176,460 were started. Almost exactly the same as in 2022.

Looking further back, only in the period between the 1950s to the mid 1970s have we managed to build 300,000 plus new homes a year – when the majority were built by local authorities. With the then change in the political landscape and the Thatcherite era, the responsibility for housebuilding shifted to private enterprise and has stayed there ever since. The industry reeled after the global financial crisis of 2008, managing to get back on its feet, only to be knocked to the floor again by COVID. It has yet to recover to anything like the growth we saw between 2000-2007.

Reform to the multiple number of planning challenges is exactly what I wanted to kickstart a new building, but I also hope that the reforms don’t just address new buildings but also conversion opportunities – from empty office blocks to hotels. It is estimated that there are 165,000 privately-owned commercial and business premises currently empty across the UK with an additional 7,000 commercial and business premises owned by local authorities having been vacant for over 12 months. So, a further easing to permitted development rights would be welcome.

Another challenge to accelerate the housebuilding process is people. According to recent research from MAKE UK, the sector needs to recruit 137,000 more workers (including 34,000 to replace retirees) to be in a position to build 300,000 new homes a year by 2030. This is over 17,000 new entrants every year and is almost three times the current rate. In 2022, only 11,000 construction apprenticeships were completed.

Encouragingly, the King’s Speech did make a commitment to “invest in skills” and this will be a top priority for the new Industrial Strategy Council. Reform of the Apprenticeship Levy – a major ask of the construction sector – was also confirmed.

Research from the Construction Industry Training Board echoes the dire situation, as it believes we need up to an additional 152,000 workers to meet the expected housebuilding targets. How the new government intends to address this startling shortfall in such a short period of time is yet to be seen, but it surely must involve a review of Visa requirements for EU nationals working in the construction industry? Or perhaps a redirection of skills from other growth sectors such as vital retrofit work for heat pump or solar installation. We also haven’t considered the additional engineering and construction skills needed for supporting infrastructure projects such as upgrading the national grid, new roads, schools and hospitals.

It remains to be seen what happens next with the government’s reform of UK’s planning framework, but they can be rest assured that they have the full support of the UK SME housebuilding sector; full of passionate, talented, and experienced developers, specialist lenders, surveyors, bankers, architects, land buyers and tradespeople.