Report outlines measures to unlock large-scale housebuilding

The measures in the report focus on five "key topics", including community engagement, land, infrastructure, finance as well as leadership and governance.

Its recommendations include that politicians, campaigning groups and planners should emphasise the consequences for current and future generations of failing to build enough houses and the opportunities represented by large scale schemes to delivery quality healthy communities.

Community engagement should be widened to reach a larger cross section of the community, including potential future residents, and pre-applications engagement processes and consultations should be of a high standard, the report said.

It also recommended that risks around any potential future uplift in land values should be shared more evenly between the local authority, the developer and the landowner so as to bring sites to market "now" and that Government departments and agencies should be required to dispose of their surplus land holdings in a way which takes account of the wider community value "rather than maximising the capital receipt".

The RTPI said that the recommendations in the report draw on lessons and examples from both England and Scotland "based upon our understanding of the overall volume of housing need and the greater frequency of large schemes in these two nations".

”These are bold but achievable proposals to try to help to break through very serious barriers which are preventing large housing schemes from significantly contributing to the delivery of the very large numbers of new homes we desperately need in the UK," said RTPI president Peter Geraghty.

"Whilst solutions involving existing stock and smaller scale development will clearly play a key role in resolving the housing crisis, our report concentrates on the part which could be played by locally-inspired large scale housing schemes – schemes and sites with thousands of homes on them."

"Our research focus was on large scale housing because this is most likely to have the greatest impact in delivering homes and sustainable communities but we believe that many of the recommendations would also help smaller scale developments happen and ensure we get the right housing in the right place at the right time,” Geraghty added.