‘I want to abolish the top-down Whitehall inspired Stalinist housing targets’. Those are the words of Liz Truss, who, barring a miracle, will be the next PM.

For some of you, this may sound familiar. Back in 2010, fresh from campaigning on this pledge, Eric Pickles, the new Secretary of State abolished regional housing targets claiming the days of ‘Soviet-style’ housing targets were over.

Following on from this, over 270,000 homes were slashed from housing targets in emerging Local Plans and Local Plan Examinations got bogged down in housing need debate with many declared unsound.

After a few years, it was decided that some form of centralisation might be a good idea and we came back to the system we have now (a central figure for need is set and then local authorities require a good reason to depart from this).

It looked like we might go full circle when the Planning White Paper proposed fully centralised targets, but then the Chesham & Amersham by-election happened and the whole conversation on planning reforms changed.  

While we need to take everything that is said on this campaign with a huge pinch of salt, the current approach will need to be reformed as it relies in part on data from 2014. Furthermore, the wider political backdrop needs to be considered – I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that the discourse on housing in the country is becoming more hostile towards new development. Housing has never been a vote winner, but we’re increasingly seeing the case for boosting the level of supply nationally being eroded.

All this leads me to believe that a populist locally led policy on housing targets will be proposed in early 2023. However, like every other area of policy there is a major storm on the horizon that could shake everything up – the cost of living crisis.

The full implications of this have yet to be felt, but there is likely to be renewed focus on why life in Britain is so expensive. Boosting housebuilding could have three main benefits; helping to address housing costs; encouraging more economic activity at a time when it’s desperately needed; and delivering more energy efficient homes to the market. All of which could mean we see some serious back pedalling to earlier stages in the policy cycle.