Labour’s commitment to 1.5 million new homes; housing delivery as an orchestrator - intermediary challenge

In the UK, the new government has linked the intention to deliver more homes to reform of the planning system which is seen as a key barrier. Two assumptions inform reform. First, that the system is sound but that there are problems with its administration. Second, that there are problems with how the system itself is engineered, for example by overly constraining land supply. The first we consider as a Principal-Agent (P-A) challenge where local government must be managed to create the foundations to meet housing targets. The second as an Orchestrator-Intermediary challenge, where developers are intermediaries who must be persuaded to deliver more housing while meeting a broad set of planning objectives. We look at changes already made by the government to green belt policy. We argue that these are overly focused on the P-A challenge and are unlikely to be sufficient to change the behaviour of developers.