Planning reform may be starting to work, but delivery remains the real test

For the first time in several years, there are tentative signs that attitudes towards the planning system are becoming less negative. 

That is one of the clearest messages from SEC Newgate’s National Planning Barometer 2026, launched at UKREiiF last week. In a sector where sentiment has been persistently downbeat, even modest improvements are noteworthy. 

Around a third of planning committee members now report an increase in housing consents in their areas following the Government’s reforms. At the same time, perceptions of community opposition have softened, and councillors are slightly less pessimistic about the direction of the planning debate. 

None of this should be overstated. The housing crisis remains acute. More than 80% of councillors still say their areas need significantly more social and affordable housing, and delivery pressures are particularly severe in London. 

However, the findings do suggest something important: the planning system itself may be becoming less of a constraint. 

Increasingly, councillors do not see the primary problem as an inability to approve homes. Instead, the question is shifting. The concern is no longer “we can’t approve enough”, but “we are approving homes, so why are they not being built?” 

This matters because the political debate has often conflated planning reform with overall housing delivery. The Government’s target of 1.5 million homes has become closely tied to changes to the planning system, creating an implicit assumption that if the target is missed, planning reform will have failed. 

The Barometer findings suggest a more complex reality. While reforms may be starting to ease the process of securing consent, the barriers to delivery extend well beyond planning alone. 

Nearly three quarters of councillors now identify slow build-out by developers as a major challenge, pointing to growing frustration that permissions are not consistently translating into homes on the ground. 

The implication is clear. The central question for Government is no longer simply whether the system can approve enough homes, but whether the wider conditions exist to ensure those homes are delivered.  

Planning reform may be beginning to reduce friction in the system. But without progress on delivery, it will not be enough to meet the scale of the housing challenge.