By David Warden
The rationing of oxygen in the 1990 dystopian science fiction film Total Recall starring Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds far-fetched. But we have our own real-life version of this dystopia in the UK: the control and rationing of land. We need bold reform to release England’s land for the benefit of all – especially Gen Z.
Humanist organisations tend to attract older, retired people with time on their hands to think about life, the universe, and everything. Many of us in the Boomer generation bought properties when it was easy to get a mortgage. In the 1980s, if you were a bus driver or an insurance clerk in your early twenties you could easily get on the housing ladder. Forty years later, most young people are locked out of house-owning and family-formation. It’s a social and economic disaster which successive governments have simply made worse with policies such as “Help to Buy” which stoke demand while doing nothing about supply.
The legislative background to today’s social disaster for Gen Z
The problem is complex but problem-solvers often point to Labour’s 1947 Town and Country Planning Act – a landmark piece of legislation that fundamentally changed the planning system in England and Wales, introducing comprehensive control over land use and development, and establishing the requirement for planning permission. (There was similar legislation for Scotland.) In a recent interview, former Prime Minister Liz Truss pointed out that, prior to this Act, there was a house-building boom, particularly during the interwar period (1919–1939) and immediately after the Second World War (1945–1947). During the 1920s and 1930s, private house-building flourished, particularly in suburban areas. Middle-class demand for home ownership grew, leading to the development of new estates on the outskirts of cities, facilitated by improvements in transport. The 1930 Housing Act encouraged slum clearance and new construction. The focus was on improving living conditions by replacing older, overcrowded housing with new homes. After the Second World War, a significant increase in state-led construction of council housing took place, focusing on rebuilding war-damaged areas and expanding urban housing stock. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 introduced comprehensive planning controls. It nationalised the right to develop land and introduced the requirement for planning permission, aiming to create more sustainable and organised development, shaping future housing projects and urban planning.
“The 1961 Act, more than anything else, explains why the price of land for residential building and the cost of housing has spiralled over the past half-century, resulting in our current affordability crisis and chronic lack of social housing.” Liam Halligan Home Truths
Under the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, “hope value” (also known as “planning uplift”) was initially intended to be captured by the state, rather than benefiting private landowners. Compensation for development rights was fixed at 1947 existing-use values (such as agricultural land) disregarding any future development potential or “hope value”. A 100% development charge was introduced, meaning that if a landowner wanted to develop their land, they had to pay the local authority or central government for the uplift in land value resulting from the planning permission. This charge was intended to ensure that the financial benefits of planning decisions (the hope value) were captured by the state in order to fund public projects and services. Throughout the 1950s, local authorities were able to build millions of low-rise, low density social homes but the development charge system proved to be unpopular and difficult to enforce, leading to a slowdown in land sales and housebuilding. As a result, the 1947 Act’s approach was repealed by the Town and Country Planning Act 1954, which abolished the development charge and allowed landowners to once again benefit from planning gain (hope value). After the repeal, planning uplift reverted to private landowners, and local authorities lost the mechanism to capture land value increases effectively. The Conservative government’s 1961 Land Compensation Act went a step further by ensuring that landowners were entitled to compensation based on market value, including hope value, when land was compulsorily purchased by the government or local authorities. Subsequent efforts to recapture planning uplift, such as the 1967 Land Commission Act and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) introduced in 2010, have sought to balance public benefit with private ownership rights, though none have fully replicated the ambitious approach of the 1947 Act.
Three million homes are missing
During the 2024 UK general election, the Labour Party pledged to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years (that’s 300,000 a year). Similarly, the Conservatives promised to construct 1.6 million homes during the next parliamentary term and the Liberal Democrats aimed to build 380,000 new homes annually, with 150,000 designated as social homes. If we take 300,000 homes per year as a benchmark, the table below indicates the scale of the housing shortfall in England over the past decade, although we need to bear in mind that the table relates only to England.
Annual Housing Completions in England (2013–2023):
Year | Number of Homes Completed |
2013 | 109,440 |
2014 | 117,810 |
2015 | 142,470 |
2016 | 141,870 |
2017 | 162,480 |
2018 | 165,490 |
2019 | 177,880 |
2020 | 146,650 |
2021 | 174,950 |
2022 | 178,010 |
2023 | 158,190 |
In the foreword to economics journalist Liam Halligan’s book Home Truths: The UK’s chronic housing shortage (2021), former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid claims that the aggregate shortfall of homes built over the last three decades is about three million. In short, we’ve got lot of catching up to do. Meanwhile, a whole generation is being shut out of home-ownership and forced into expensive and insecure renting. Javid also points out that the big developers have a stranglehold on supply and that the competition authorities need to look at an industry that has become increasingly concentrated over recent years, dominated by just a few large operators.
Halligan points out that landowners and large developers have every incentive to sit on their land holdings to increase profit margins by doing nothing. In Bournemouth, where I live, prime building sites are sometimes left derelict – and unsightly – for decades. Halligan writes that only bold action can break this “low-build” deadlock. He argues that the threat of compulsory purchase should be used, if necessary, to release acreage. However, one of the main problems is that when planning permission is granted, land values shoot up, often x 100 or even x 200. This vast planning gain accrues almost entirely to the landowner but it should be shared with local government in order to help fund the infrastructure needed to complement new homes such as new schools, hospitals, and roads. Planning gain is systematically shared in many other countries including France, Germany and the US. Halligan calls for one bold policy shift – reversing the 1961 legislation and introducing a system under which planning gain is shared 50/50 between owners and local authorities.
Are politicians actually listening?
Halligan’s call may be cutting through to politicians. In their 2024 election manifesto, the Liberal Democrats explicitly called for councils to be able to buy land for housing based on current use value rather than on a hope-value basis by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961. The Social Democratic Party called for private housing developers to be levied a 50% tax on the uplift to land value attributable to the granting of planning permission on all greenfield sites and undeveloped land. The Labour Party manifesto made the same point but in more general terms: “We will take steps to ensure that for specific types of development schemes, landowners are awarded fair compensation rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission.” There was nothing in the Conservative manifesto about land reform (no surprise there, despite Sajid Javid’s foreword in Halligan’s book) and Reform UK’s Contract for Change 2024 said nothing about land reform in their housing section. What is the point of Reform UK if they have no actual plan to reform planning and solve the housing crisis? The Liberal Democrats also promised to build ten new garden cities and Labour promised to build a new generation of new towns, inspired by the proud legacy of the 1945 Labour government.
A cautionary tale
Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a 1990 dystopian science fiction film set in 2084 where Mars has been colonised and its inhabitants live under the oppressive rule of a tyrannical corporation led by Vilos Cohaagen. The corporation controls access to oxygen, rationing it as a commodity to maintain power and exploit the population. The story follows Douglas Quaid, who discovers he may have a hidden identity connected to a rebellion fighting to liberate Mars and make oxygen free for all. As Quaid unravels a conspiracy involving memory implants and false identities, he joins the insurgents in a desperate mission to activate an ancient alien reactor capable of producing limitless breathable air, freeing Mars from Cohaagen’s stranglehold. (Image Wikipedia: Fair use) The rationing of oxygen in Total Recall sounds far-fetched. But we have our own real-life version of this dystopia in the UK: the control and rationing of land. We need a real-life Douglas Quaid to release England’s land for the benefit of all – especially Gen Z.
As has been said frequently, the problem is not too few houses, but too many people, and most of them wanting to live in the southern half of England. When people from eastern Europe, Asia and Africa consider they have a right to leave their native sovereign countries and to arrive in others' sovereign ones and be housed, fed and otherwise cared for, why the surprise that there are not enough houses?
In 2021, 28.8% of UK live births were to non-UK-born women. The total fertility rate (TFR) increased for UK-born women to 1.54 children per woman; the TFR for non-UK-born women remained at 2.03 children per woman. Simple facts.
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