Housing unit submissions have exceeded 400,000 in a 12-month period for the first time since 2022, according to national Planning Portal operator, TerraQuest.
Figures analysed in the latest edition of the Planning Application Index show the first half of 2026 recorded 189,520 housing unit submissions across England, including London, making it the strongest H1 of any year since the beginning of the current decade.
In the year to 30 June 2026, permission was sought for 412,130 new homes, with all regions outside of London recording a year-on-year rise in applications. Yet the most recent ONS statistics on housing starts show just 150,000 in 2025 as a whole, which TerraQuest says suggests intent is far outpacing delivery.
Geoff Keal, CEO of TerraQuest and Planning Portal, said: “The gap between developer intent and on-the-ground delivery is continuing to grow. It creates a risk that applications will simply add to the ‘missing city’ of hundreds of thousands of new homes that have been applied for but never built.”
“The trend points towards fragility in the development pipeline, with multiple considerations having to align for any given project to be viable. Economic confidence, local demand, willing lenders, transport infrastructure and connections to utilities are all necessary for the delivery of a given site. If any one of these is missing, that project is likely to stall.”
“Nevertheless, the signal of intent continues to be robust, which suggests developers are increasingly optimistic that they can progress projects through to starts and completions. We shall see over the coming months whether that confidence is well founded.”
While affordable housing applications fell between Q1 and Q2, Q2 2026 still recorded 5,053 applications, making it the strongest second quarter for this housing type since the beginning of the decade. TerraQuest says that the increased level of intent paints a positive picture for the future pipeline of social and affordable housing.
Geoff Keal said: “The growth in social and affordable applications, which outpace the growth in applications for market homes, may well reflect additional funding for the sector outlined in recent budgets.”
“While not immune to the delivery challenges seen across other parts of the sector, public funding will, to an extent, insulate these plans from the fragility of the development pipeline. Ministers will hope that a resurgence in social housing can play a significant role in maximising the number of new homes delivered by 2029.”
The Index also showed that the average number of new homes included in a planning application has nearly doubled from 6.8 in Q1 2024 to 12.9 in Q2 2026, having peaked at 14.4 in Q4 2025.
Geoff Keal explained: “This increase in development size has potentially significant implications for delivery. The larger a scheme is, the more prospective new homes are lost if that scheme fails. The risk profile of the development pipeline therefore changes as site sizes rise.”
“It is possible that this figure reflects the new grey belt designation that makes planning permission for development on existing green belt land easier, along with other measures introduced to encourage the delivery of large-scale housing schemes.”
“At the same time, urban brownfield sites can often be significantly more challenging to bring forward viably. They typically cannot accommodate the scale of new homes required to align with the delivery models of larger housebuilders. Taken together, these factors may help explain the clear trend we are seeing towards larger-scale housing schemes coming forward for planning approval.”
Tony Mulhall, senior specialist at RICS, said: “It is impressive to see the increase in planning applications up to mid-2026. Broadly this is likely to reflect the reduction in so-called ‘planning risk’ as a result of the pro-housing development reforms introduced by the new Labour government through the National Planning Policy Framework 2024 – in other words, a sector gearing up for development.”
“However, the lack of housebuilding evident in the data reflects the evaporation of the business case for development, an equally important part of the planning and development equation, with increased construction costs and weak housing demand impacting viability. Addressing weak buyer demand is something government will need to turn its attention to if the sector is to significantly increase volumes, the results of which, no doubt, will show up in future TerraQuest data.”
