Committee Urges Action To Improve Land Value Capture System

The House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has published a new report, Delivering 1.5 million new homes: Land Value Capture, examining how reforms to developer contributions could support the delivery of affordable homes and public infrastructure.

The Committee concludes that the current system of land value capture in England,  primarily through Section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), is failing to deliver its full potential due to complex negotiations, inconsistent local approaches, and under-resourced planning authorities.

The report urges the Government to introduce a series of reforms to ensure developers make fair contributions towards infrastructure and affordable housing, particularly homes for Social Rent.

Recommendations include:

• New standardised Section 106 templates to streamline negotiations and reduce delays.
• A statutory dispute resolution scheme to settle deadlocked negotiations between local authorities and developers.
• Reinstating funded Level 7 planning apprenticeships for students over 21 to help address skills shortages in planning departments.
• Publishing updated land value estimates data, which have not been refreshed since August 2020.

The Committee also highlights the need for stronger leadership from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to improve transparency and consistency in the use of CIL. It calls for a national interactive map of CIL charging schedules and Infrastructure Funding Statements to show how funds are being spent.

Concerns are raised about the Government’s New Towns programme, warning that publishing detailed maps of potential sites without a planning policy to protect land value risks speculative profiteering. The report recommends establishing development corporations by spring 2026, with a requirement to prioritise homes for Social Rent within the affordable housing mix.

Looking more broadly at the Government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million new homes by July 2029, the Committee finds that completions are not yet increasing at a pace consistent with this target. It criticises the delay in publishing the Long-Term Housing Strategy, stating that this has “left industry in the dark” about how such an ambitious goal will be achieved.

The report concludes that while there is no single solution to boosting housing supply, incremental reforms to land value capture, particularly to Section 106 and CIL, could make a significant contribution to funding the affordable housing and infrastructure communities need.

The full report, Delivering 1.5 million new homes: Land Value Capture (HC 672), is available here