Housing supply and planning delay in the South of England

Purpose – There is a growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing. The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of empirical research on the time taken to gain planning permission for selected recent major housing projects from a sample of local authorities in Southern England. Design/methodology/approach – Information on a 180 major residential projects in Southern England are collected from the records of planning authorities and the data analysed for information on the extent of delay and variability in the processing time for applications. Findings – The scale of delay found was far greater than is indicated by average official data measuring the extent to which local authorities meet planning delay targets. Practical implications – If these results are representative of the country as a whole, they indicate that planning delay could be a major cause of the slow responsiveness of British housing supply. Originality/value – This is the first time that planning delay in the UK has been measured in a comprehensive project‐based manner from original records.