Latest housing research: The politics of land

A recent report from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence explores the politics of land value capture and why it recently moved back up the policy agenda.

Rather than focusing solely on the technicalities of planning contributions, the report argues that land value capture has increasingly become a way of negotiating between competing expectations about what development should deliver and who should benefit from it.

What feels particularly relevant is the report’s argument that many of these debates are ultimately political as much as technical. Questions about who benefits from rising land values, how infrastructure is funded and what development should contribute locally are becoming harder to separate from wider debates about housing affordability and inequality.

For housing associations and developers, the report reflects a reality the sector is already navigating. Decisions about land sit at the intersection of viability, infrastructure funding, affordable housing delivery, regeneration and local growth.

The report does not present land value capture as a simple solution, nor does it suggest that changes to planning obligations alone can resolve the housing crisis. Instead, it highlights the limits of relying solely on existing development models to meet growing social and economic pressures.

These tensions are becoming more visible in policy decisions. London’s recent emergency housing measures – including the temporary reduction in borough Community Infrastructure Levy contributions to support viability and accelerate delivery – demonstrate how questions about land value, infrastructure funding and housing supply are now being weighed against one another more directly.

A second report, from thinktank the New Economics Foundation, approaches the issue from a different angle. Its social purpose of land framework, developed with Southwark Council and local residents, explores how public land and assets can be managed with a clearer focus on social outcomes and community voice.

What the report reflects more broadly is a shift in expectations around development and regeneration, and the recognition that decisions about land are no longer seen as purely technical or planning-led exercises. They increasingly sit within wider debates about trust, participation and long-term stewardship.

That is not always easy to reconcile with delivery pressures. Providers need viable schemes and clear planning decisions alongside the confidence to invest. But the quality of engagement, and the credibility of the social value being offered, increasingly affect how development is understood and supported.

A report from LSE Housing and Communities brings a further dimension to this discussion. It focuses on the potential to convert unused commercial buildings into affordable homes, linking housing delivery with net zero, embodied carbon and the reuse of existing infrastructure.

“Questions about land are no longer confined to planning policy. They now sit at the centre of debates about affordability, infrastructure, retrofit, local growth and community trust”

This question is particularly acute in London and other high-demand urban areas, where land constraints, infrastructure pressures and development costs are most intense.

In that context, the report reflects growing interest in how existing buildings can contribute to housing supply alongside new development. Public assets and underused urban spaces also have a role to play here.

Not every building is suitable for conversion, and poor-quality schemes have rightly drawn criticism in the past. But the report raises an important question for local authorities and housing providers about how we make better use of the land, buildings and infrastructure that already exist.

Taken together, these reports suggest that questions about land are no longer confined to planning policy. They now sit at the centre of debates about affordability, infrastructure, retrofit, local growth and community trust. 

We need to deliver more homes, but we also need to show how development contributes to social outcomes and creates places that work well over the long term.

Land is moving back to the centre of that conversation.

Isobelle Connor, research and public policy manager, Peabody; and member, Thinkhouse Editorial Panel 

Thinkhouse has launched the 2026 Early Career Researchers Prize. Sponsored by Inside Housing, Altair, L&Q and Aster, the prize winner receives £500 and coverage in Inside Housing. If you are engaged in housing research, click here for more information.