11th Report - Unlocking land for housing

Key findings

• The Department launched the £21 billion NHDF without specifying success criteria, measurable targets for homes to be delivered, or how much funding would support unlocking land versus other interventions, preventing robust accountability for this substantial public investment.
• Of 713,000 homes expected from £10.5 billion legacy unlocking programmes (2016–17 onwards), only 57,671 had been delivered by December 2025; 24,400 were identified through retrospective analysis, indicating initial tracking failures.
• The Department and Homes England did not initially track homes from some legacy programmes and are using retrospective geospatial analysis, with particular difficulty attributing homes to infrastructure-only investments (e.g. M5 junction improvements); methodology lacks external validation.
• The NHDF operates on a reactive, demand-led project-by-project basis rather than strategic selection, risking an unbalanced portfolio across locations; the Department declined to set numerical delivery targets, arguing flexibility is needed to balance multiple objectives.
• External evaluation of the NHDF was not in place at launch in March 2026; the Department gave itself until mid-2027 to complete scoping, risking loss of early learning opportunities and data collection gaps.

Recommendations

• Department should set out success criteria for each NHDF objective (housing supply, economic growth, place-making, quality, financial return), with milestones and key risks; report six-monthly on homes completed and forecast on unlocked land.
• Department should confirm NHDF business case finalisation and provide explanation of key issues and risks identified.
• Department and Homes England should set out methodology for tracking homes on legacy programmes, evaluate that methodology, and report final numbers of completed homes within twelve months.
• By year-end, Department and Homes England should jointly explain how NHDF approach will adapt to ongoing local government reorganisation (unitary authorities, Mayoral Strategic Authorities) and Homes England's new target operating model.
• Department and Homes England should articulate how NHDF will: (a) select and balance projects across locations with Strategic Place Partnerships to maximise impact; (b) decide investment type (grants/loans/equity) to achieve greatest impact and value for money.
• Department should update on progress letting contracts for NHDF evaluation and write setting out in detail how evaluation will work once finalised.

Key actors

Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Homes England, Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Sarah Healey, Amy Rees, HM Treasury, Comptroller and Auditor General