WHY IT MATTERS _ IN THE KNOW
Funding for land fails to deliver
Billions of pounds marked for housing land have failed to deliver enough new homes, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO’s report revealed that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) allocated £10.5 billion (since 2016) to unlocking land for more than
700,000 homes, but only 33,300 homes – roughly 5% – have been built so far.
WHY IT MATTERS Both MHCLG and Homes England have failed to track whether unlocked sites result in housing delivery, the NAO said. From April, MHCLG plans to add existing programmes to a new £21 billion National Housing Delivery Fund, including a National Housing Bank operating under Homes England. The NAO said the new fund will only deliver value for money if the government sets clear priorities, improves performance monitoring and tracks land unlocked and homes built.
Twice the price Annual costs for construction materials for all work have more than doubled in the last 20 years, according to the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), which publishes construction material price indices, categorised under: all work; new housing; other new work; and repair, maintain, improve (RMI). Prices for all work in 2025 were 39% higher than pre-pandemic in 2019. Comparing December 2025 with December 2024, prices rose by:
3.3% All work
4.2% New housing
3.7% Other new work
4.1% for RMI
WHY IT MATTERS This was the 12 th consecutive
month in which the index showed increasing annual costs after 18 months of decreasing costs between June 2023 and December 2024. Dr David Crosthwaite, Chief Economist at BCIS, said the shift could indicate either a return of demand or, more likely, that suppliers have increased their prices.
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