Watchdog says England's planning system for new homes is 'flawed'

The Government has been criticised for using a "flawed" system to figure out how many new homes have to be built to meet demand in England.

A report from spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) says the planning system, which allows national and local government to predict how many new homes are needed, where they are required and what types of property should be built, is inadequate.

The planning system is described as "under-performing" with the report stating that "we cannot conclude that the planning system currently provides value for money in terms of delivering new homes effectively".

Since 2017, the Government has set ambitious targets of building 300,000 homes every year in England by the mid-2020s.

To increase the supply of new homes, reforms have been implemented to planning regulations to help English councils streamline that delivery.

However, according to the NAO report, only 177,000 homes have been developed on average since 2005. To reach the target of 300,000 annually will require an increase of 69 percent on the average number of new homes built since 2005-06.

It concludes that the "system is not working well. The Department and government more widely need to take this much more seriously and bring about improvement if they are to meet their ambition of 300,000 new homes per year by the mid-2020s."