New home approvals in England fall to a record low in 2026

Key Points

Only 1,220 private housing sites gained planning permission in England in Q1 2026, the lowest quarterly figure since records began in 2006.
Sites of 10 homes or more dropped to 408 approvals, down 13% year on year, with an 18% fall across the South.
Permissions over the past 12 months covered 216,141 homes, 58% of the 370,000 annual target.
HBF said a new house costs an average £76,000 more to deliver than in 2020, with the Building Safety Levy adding around £3,000 per plot from 1 October.

Just 1,220 private housing sites won planning permission in England in the first quarter of 2026, the lowest quarterly total since the count began in 2006.

The Home Builders Federation’s latest Housing Pipeline report, which draws on data from Glenigan, compares that with around 2,000 sites in 2022 and nearly 3,000 in 2017.

Sites of 10 homes or more accounted for 408 approvals, also a record low for a quarter and 13% below the same period last year.

The South of England recorded the steepest fall at 18%. The quarterly count of 10-plus unit sites has halved over the past decade from around 1,000 in 2016.

Planning authorities across England granted permission for 216,141 new homes over the past 12 months, or 58% of the 370,000 annual target set through the National Planning Policy Framework. That figure underpins the government’s ambition of 300,000 net additions a year, while actual housing supply and new consents both continue to run at around 200,000 a year.

The 1,220 projects approved in the quarter sit 14% below the fourth quarter of 2025 and 17% below the first quarter of 2025. Those projects carried 46,547 units, down 12% on the previous three months and level with a year earlier.

Approvals for four sites of more than 1,000 units cushioned the fall, and schemes of that size take longer to complete because of their infrastructure requirements. The number of units per site keeps rising on schemes of 10 units or more.

Approvals for the smallest sites have picked up over the past year, though they account for 3% of all permissions granted. The average permissioned site in the 1-2 unit category comes to just over 1.1 homes, so most amount to single dwellings.

Too expensive to build

The HBF puts the cost of delivering a new house at an average £76,000 higher than in 2020, with steeper increases for flats.

The federation blames taxes and regulatory costs layered onto development, alongside subdued demand and a shortage of affordable mortgage lending. It notes this is the first time in 60 years that no government scheme supports homebuyers.

The Building Safety Levy takes effect on 1 October 2026 and applies to residential developments of 10 or more dwellings in England, funding the remediation of historic building safety defects.

HBF said the levy adds an average of £3,000 per plot and will make development unviable in parts of the country.

“Whilst the Government’s planning reforms have been positive, because of challenging housing market conditions and the long-term assault on housing viability, the new and improved planning system is still not delivering,” said Neil Jefferson, Chief Executive of the Home Builders Federation.

“These positive moves to boost housing supply are being thwarted by the growing level of taxation and cost of policy requirements that are making many sites simply unviable to develop,” Jefferson said.

“If Government wants to see housing supply increase it has got to look wider than planning and tackle the two major constraints of site viability and affordability. If it does, the industry stands ready to increase output, deliver more private and affordable homes, create jobs and boost growth,” he said.