The impacts were writ large across the South East, where traditionally Tory councils fell to opposition control, with planning and development issues often being at the heart of these transitions.

It is also widely accepted (across the political spectrum) that housing has become increasingly unaffordable, as average house price increases have exceeded average wage growth for nearly 30 years.

This manifests in trends that many of us will be familiar with, specifically the inability for young people to afford rising rental costs or buy their first home. The Office for National Statistics reports that, across England and Wales, the percentage of 20-to 24-year-olds living with their parents rose from 44.5% in 2011, to just over 51% in 2021.

So with house prices and rental values in parts of the country being extremely high and interest rates continuing to rise, there is a prevailing view that the housing market is “broken”.

Consequently, all the major political parties talk about the need to address the affordability of housing.

Conservative governments past and present have put in place demand-side measures, including the now ended Help to Buy scheme.

There have been more substantial interventions proposed by both the Liberal Democrats and Labour parties, with each saying that, if in government, they would invest heavily in social housing provision to improve general affordability.

Likewise, each of the main parties is seeking to address perceived inequities in the private rented sector. The Government is still pushing through the Renters Reform Bill through the parliamentary system, and Labour is proposing to go further, calling for rent controls and restrictions on purchasers of foreign properties.

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However, the uncomfortable truth is that the unaffordability of housing in the UK is largely a feature of this country’s outright failure to build sufficient houses. For various reasons, including our planning system, we have not supplied the quantity of new homes required to address population and household growth.

The solution seems simple: build more houses and address the basic imbalance between supply and demand. In this regard, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour all remain (at the time of writing) at least publicly committed to seeing 300,000 homes delivered annually.

But Levelling Up and Regeneration Act and the revised National Planning Policy Framework, together with the tone of the Liberal Democrat’s campaigning, suggests that neither party is serious about putting in place measures to increase the supply of homes, particularly in areas where housing unaffordability is most prevalent.

It goes without saying that successfully reforming the planning system and introducing other measures to significantly increase housing supply not easy.

The positive impact of any reforms on housing affordability will take years to make a real difference because the imbalance between the supply and demand for homes cannot be corrected quickly.

It is this very fact that makes it challenging for any government to ‘stay the course’ and implement changes that may be unpopular in the short-term.

Planning reform is certainly a perennial and divisive issue in UK politics, and it is often easier to make bold claims in opposition, than it is to bring about meaningful reforms whilst in Government.

What is clear is that Labour’s stance, specifically the substantial weight given to housing at the party’s October conference, has considerably raised the profile of the issue. As such, it appears that housing will be a major battleground in the next general election.