Developers also contribute to the speed of a project being built. We show that the buildout rate – a developer decision – is several months faster on average when building takes place in areas with a high housing gap than in areas with a low housing gap. 10/12

New builds are subject to supply side frictions. We add planning data and show that particularly larger projects (often urban extensions) face much higher hurdles in terms of their paperwork through the number of filings, and can often spend years in the planning system. 9/12

Planning designations matter. 15% of the housing gap lies in greenbelt areas, but not all greenbelt areas are in high demand. Allowing building on just 10% of England’s greenbelts with the highest gap would be a huge positive, particularly in the North West Green Belt. 8/12

30% of the housing gap requires urban extensions in places such as North Shields and South of London (Richmond/Kingston). Surprisingly, we find urban extensions are slower and more bureaucratic, with longer planning times and slower build-out rates compared to densification. 7/12

Half the housing gap lies in areas classified as densification–but only 29% of homes were built in such areas over the last 20 years. Densification is needed particularly in neighbourhoods of Wandsworth, Islington, Camden, Manchester, Bristol, Salford, Edinburgh & Portsmouth. 6/12

We classify 3.2 million new builds in the last two decades by location—based on population & distance to CBD :
New Rural Developments – small villages & rural areas
Small Town Extensions – around small towns
Urban Extensions – city outskirts
Densification – inner-city builds
5/12

The highest gaps are in trendy urban centres (Stockbridge Edinburgh, Jewellery Quarter Birmingham) while the lowest are either near infrastructure, e.g. sewage plants, airports and big road interchanges, or in areas without good amenity access where few people want to live. 4/12

Local housebuilding decisions are crucial: 96% of variation in the housing gap is within LAs rather than between. Many LAs have areas of both high and low gaps, e.g. Hillingdon has gaps in the top 14th and bottom 1st percentile (similar images can be downloaded from map). 3/12

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