Thousands of homes with planning permission are not being built

Some 61,468 homes in the North West have not been built, despite planning permission being granted.

This is according to research published by the Local Government Association and carried out by Glinigan.

A total of 28,597 across Yorkshire and Humber are also among the national total of 423,000 yet-to-be-built homes.

The figures also show that developers are taking longer to build new homes. It now takes 40 months, on average, from schemes receiving planning permission to building work being completed – eight months longer than in 2013/14.

The planning system is not a barrier to building, the LGA said. Councils are approving nine in every 10 planning applications, and granted planning permission in 2016/17 for 321,202 new homes – up from 204,989 new homes in 2015/16.

The LGA, which represents 370 councils in England and Wales, said the new analysis underlined the need for councils to be given greater powers to take action on unbuilt land which has planning permission.

It said councils needed powers to act on uncompleted schemes, including making it easier to compulsory purchase land where homes remain unbuilt, and to be able to charge developers full council tax for every unbuilt development from the point that the original planning permission expires.

Cllr Martin Tett, LGA Housing spokesman, said: “These figures prove that the planning system is not a barrier to house building. In fact the opposite is true. In the last year, councils and their communities granted twice as many planning permissions as the number of new homes that were completed.

“No-one can live in a planning permission. Councils need greater powers to act where housebuilding has stalled.

“To tackle the new homes backlog and to get the country building again, councils also need the freedom to borrow and invest in desperately-needed new homes, as recognised by the influential Treasury Select Committee last month.

“Our national housing shortage is one of the most pressing issues we face. While private developers have a key role to play in solving our housing crisis, they cannot meet the 300,000 housebuilding target set by the Government on their own.

“We have no chance of housing supply meeting demand unless councils can get building again.”