Planning permission was granted for just 42,000 new homes in England during the third quarter of this year, a 31% drop on the same quarter in 2024 and the lowest quarterly total in over 15 years.
The Home Builders Federation鈥檚 (HBF) latest Housing Pipeline report, based on data from Glenigan, shows that just 1,311 projects were approved between June and September 2025, marking the 11th successive quarter of decline in the number of sites permissioned for new homes.
For the year to September 2025, planning permission was given for just 209,781 new homes, marking the lowest for a 12-month period since 2013 and 38% lower than the peak seen in early 2022.
The number of housing projects granted approval in the last year has dropped to 7,500, a 12% drop on the year to Q2 2025 and 1,000 fewer than the previous record low, which was set in June 2025 and just 36% of the number of sites permissioned in 2018.
The HBF attributed 聽the decline in to lack of confidence among developers that buyers can be found for new homes, and increased business costs impacting on financial viability.
London saw the biggest drop in units approved, down 49% on the previous quarter and 72% lower than in Q3 2024. There have been fewer than 34,000 units and only 910 projects approved in the capital in the last 12 months.
HBF chief executive Neil Jefferson said: 鈥淭oday鈥檚 figures paint a very worrying picture for future housing supply. The positive planning reforms announced this week are very positive, but home builders continue to grapple with rising policy costs and new taxes, making investment hard to justify.
鈥淏uilding on improvements to both the planning system and the planning process, ministers now need to consider these rising taxes, new levies and excessive policy costs that make many sites unviable to develop.
鈥淢eanwhile, the lack of affordable mortgage lending is preventing many young people without access to the Bank of Mum and Dad from getting onto the housing ladder, undermining the industry鈥檚 ability to build more homes and further entrenching social inequalities.鈥�
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