BLOGS

The consent-to-delivery gap is now the defining story in English housing

Planning committees across England have been busy. REalyse planning data shows applications granted for residential schemes jumped from roughly 137,700 units in 2021 to a four-year high of over 322,000 units in 2022, before easing back to around 174,000 units in 2025. On paper, that looks like a system working: permissions have consistently outpaced pre-pandemic norms even as they've cooled from the 2022 peak.

The trouble is what happens next. Official MHCLG figures show England delivered 208,600 net additional dwellings in 2024/25 - a 6% fall on the year before, and the third consecutive annual decline. NHBC completion data tells a similar story: 122,012 new homes completed across the UK in 2025, down 2% on 2024. Registrations are recovering, up 11% year-on-year to 115,350, but registrations must clear an 12-24 month build cycle before they show up as finished homes. For developers, investors and lenders underwriting schemes today, the message is clear: the constraint has shifted from "can we get permission" to "can we get it built."

What REalyse's pipeline data shows

Tracking the full residential pipeline by stage reveals the scale of the backlog. REalyse data shows approximately 1.46 million residential units currently sitting with planning permission granted but not yet started, compared with roughly 1.14 million units actively under construction. That stock of "shovel-ready but stalled" consent is larger than the entire active construction pipeline - a striking imbalance for a market meant to be building at pace toward the government's 1.5 million homes target.

This isn't simply a story of viability collapse. Section 106 obligations are under particular strain, with an estimated 32% of sites in 2024/25 delivering fewer affordable units than originally agreed, as developers argue changed market conditions make full obligations unviable. Combined with Building Safety Regulator gateway delays - which have hit London especially hard, where new home registrations fell 27% in 2025 - the picture is one of permissions granted in a different cost and financing environment than the one developers now face when trying to build them out.

Regional divergence: where delivery is keeping pace, and where it isn't

The gap between consent and delivery isn't evenly spread. NHBC registration data shows the West Midlands (+29%) and Eastern region (+24%) posting the strongest growth in 2025, while London registrations fell 27% - driven by Building Safety Regulator delays and declining affordable housing delivery. Apartment registrations across the UK were the only house type to shrink in 2025, down 2%, concentrated almost entirely in London and other high-rise-dependent markets.

For institutional investors and lenders, this divergence matters more than the national headline. A local authority with a large bank of granted permissions but limited construction activity signals either a viability problem, a resourcing constraint among smaller housebuilders, or genuine market caution - each with different implications for underwriting risk, land values and rental yield assumptions. REalyse comparables data across planning stage, tenure mix and local sales evidence can help separate "delayed by design" schemes (phased for market absorption) from schemes that are genuinely stalled.

Reading the gap for underwriting and site selection

For development managers and credit analysts, three practical signals are worth tracking through REalyse's planning and market data:

• Time-in-stage: how long a scheme has sat at "granted" without progressing to construction start is often a better risk signal than the headline unit count.

• Local absorption rates: comparing consented pipeline volumes against actual sales transaction and achieved-rent evidence in the same postcode district shows whether local demand can realistically absorb the pipeline, or whether an area is over-consented relative to demand.

• BTR and affordable mix: schemes with a build-to-rent or institutional funding structure have historically shown more resilient delivery rates than speculative private-sale schemes exposed to mortgage-market sentiment, since they aren't as reliant on pre-sales to fund construction.

Outlook: reform alone won't close the gap

Government planning reforms and Building Safety Regulator process changes announced in 2025 are aimed squarely at unblocking this backlog, and early signs - a 23% quarterly rise in Q4 2025 starts - suggest some effect. But with roughly 1.46 million units still sitting in the "granted" column against a construction pipeline of 1.14 million, closing the gap will take more than faster approvals: it requires viability, financing and site-level delivery confidence to catch up with the planning system's output.

For now, the opportunity for investors and developers lies in identifying where consented pipeline is genuinely likely to convert to delivery - and pricing land, debt and rental assumptions accordingly rather than assuming permission equals supply.