A new report is delving into the practicality of Labour’s 1.5mn homes target, and looking to establish where we can build in order to maximise efficiency and make sure the homes make the biggest possible difference. The creation of these new homes must be strategic, and well-placed in order to make sure that development is not wasted on homes that go underutilised. There has been much research into the UK’s capability to tackle housing inequality and homelessness, but the importance of the necessary foresight and planning.

The report, titled: Solving Britain’s Housing Crisis: Where and how to build 1.5 million homes, has been published by CAGE and the University of Warrick, and draws on comprehensive data including over 20 billion carefully cleaned housing searches from Rightmove in order to truly establish where Britain’s housing demand lies. The study introduces hyper-local measures of housing demand that challenge many of the assumptions underpinning existing planning debates, and seeks to nail down where we should be building in order to truly turn the tide on the housing crisis.

A planning system drifting away from demand

The report begins by revisiting the familiar churn of planning reform. From the era of Regional Spatial Strategies to the OAN-driven 2012 NPPF and the repeatedly revised Standard Method, each approach has tried (without great success) to match supply to demand. Local Plans remain the backbone of delivery, but the discretionary system means an allocated site is no guarantee of a home. Complex negotiations, stretched local capacity, overlapping designations and political pressure points have created a system in which sites can sit in planning for years.

Yet the most revealing insight is not about policy design but where housing has actually gone. Over the last 25 years, housing delivery has shifted decisively away from the places people actually want to live. Densification has collapsed from roughly half of new builds in the early 2000s to just 15% today. In its place, urban extensions and rural developments have surged, often on the edges of towns or in low-amenity, low-access locations. As a result, new homes increasingly have poorer transport links, weaker access to employment, and fewer nearby services. For many households, these areas are simply not attractive, even if homes are technically “delivered”. The government has recently announced measures to address these issues, such as the automatic “yes” to developments that will bring new homes near well-connected railways in the UK.

Measuring where people actually want to live

The heart of the report lies in two new metrics: the housing gap and housing tightness, both constructed using anonymised Rightmove data. The housing gap reflects how many additional homes are needed in a given area (searchers minus listings), and tightness captures how hard it is for an individual searcher to secure a home (searchers per listing). Crucially, search data reveals demand even where housing supply is constrained or non-existent, giving a 3D picture of demand across the country, not just where transactions happen.

The results sharply contradict the idea that high demand and high prices always coincide. In fact, excess demand is often highest in areas where prices are relatively modest but listings are scarce. At the same time, the analysis shows that both measures are incredibly stable over time.

READ MORE: Reeves urged to fix “broken” social security system – Housing Executive

A country of micro-markets — and micro-opportunities

Perhaps the most important finding is just how localised housing demand really is. Only 3.9% of the variation in the housing gap exists between local authorities, with the remaining 96.1% existing within them. This stands in contradiction to common discussions around council-wide targets and greenbelt totals which can often obscure the reality that within a single borough demand varies dramatically. Some neighbourhoods exhibit some of the highest excess demand in the country. Others, even just a few miles away, show a negative housing gap, meaning supply exceeds demand.

Using its classification system, the report breaks down the national housing gap according to development type. The result is unambiguous: 50.5% of demand sits in areas that require densification. Another 28% sits in locations where urban extensions can play a role. Only 6% of demand is in areas suited to rural developments. Put simply, if Britain wants to build where people want to live, it must look inwards — not outwards.

Approaching the greenbelt

Inevitably, this brings the debate back to the greenbelt. The analysis shows that 15% of England’s total excess demand lies on greenbelt land, but that this land is highly uneven. Around London, more than half of the greenbelt shows no meaningful excess demand at all, yet around Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Bristol, large swathes of the inner greenbelt have some of the strongest housing gaps in the country.

The report emphasises that only a very small portion of greenbelt land is needed to make a significant difference. Releasing just 10% of greenbelt land with the highest demand would satisfy over half of all greenbelt-related housing need, meaning most of the country’s greenbelt would remain untouched.

READ MORE: The Housing Impact of Making Refugee Status Temporary – Housing Executive

A new geography 

The report closes with some key takeaways, calling for a refined, data-driven approach to planning to ensure that the new homes built can make the most difference:

• Make densification the first priority.
• Identify high-demand clusters within every local plan area.
• Target specific, high-gap edges of the greenbelt rather than relying on blanket reform.
• Scale back rural builds where demand is weak.
• Plan new homes around amenities and transport, not just land availability.