The housing crisis won't be solved until planners put homes where people actually want to live
Tuesday 11 Nov 2025
Dr Amrita Kulka and Dr Nikhil Datta have analysed billions of UK homebuyer searches, rental and sales listings, actual build patterns, and planning applications in a bid to discover why decades of house building targets haven't solved the UK's housing problems.
Their results are presented in WhereToBuildLink opens in a new window, an online mapping tool which provides visual evidence to local and national decision makers and stakeholders about where housing is most needed, and what type of development is in highest demand across Britain.
They have found that:
- Decades of planning targets haven't solved the UK's housing problems, with demand outstripping supply and prices and rents becoming increasingly unaffordable
- New research published todayLink opens in a new window finds that new homes are increasingly being built in areas with low demand, poor access to jobs, and limited amenities.
- The government has pledged to tackle the problem with 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament – but this will only help if they are built in the right places.
- Using real house search data, Warwick researchers have calculated where and how these homes should be built to meet actual demand, and made the results available in an online mapping toolLink opens in a new window and local-authority specific reports.
- Policymakers and stakeholders can use this research to build houses where people actually want to live.
Alongside the tool, the researchers present 350 tailored reportsLink opens in a new window - one for each local authority in England, Scotland and Wales – and the full report Solving Britain's Housing Crisis: Where and How to Build 1.5 Million HomesLink opens in a new window
It is hoped these free-to-use resources will help planners and policymakers make informed choices
In the deep dive report, Dr Kulka and Dr Datta present two new measures of demand at very local levels – housing gap and housing tightness – and conclude that part of Britain's housing problem is that new houses haven't been built in the places people most want to live:
- 70% of new builds offer worse job access than the average existing home; this rises to 80% for commuters using only public transport
- 18% of all new builds are in villages or towns without a secondary school or GP up from 11% in 2010.
- Only 29% of new builds since 2010 were in high-demand densification areas, despite these areas accounting for 50% of the housing gap.
Where should we build?
The researchers created two new ways to measure housing demand.
- The housing gap is the difference between the number of people searching for a home and the number of available properties in an area. It reflects how many home-seekers are affected by a shortage. It is the most accurate and complete measure of where people want to live, independent of other constraints such as price and availability.
- Housing tightness is the ratio of demand to supply. It reflects how competitive it is to find a house to buy or rent in an area.
Using these measures, Dr Datta and Dr Kulka are able to show every local authority in Britain where the hotspots of demand truly are.
They find that it isn't just London and the South East with demand outstripping supply:
- UK cities containing areas with the biggest gap between supply and demand are Bristol, Manchester, Salford, Edinburgh, Portsmouth, and Sheffield. Within London, the boroughs with the biggest gaps are Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster, Camden, Tower Hamlets, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Hackney, Newham, and Wandsworth. Neighbourhoods within Wandsworth have the largest gap in the UK.
- UK cities containing areas with the tightest housing markets include Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow, Lancaster, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Portsmouth, Hull, Sheffield, Swansea, Cardiff, and York.
Locations with a large gap or high tightness should be urgent priorities for new housing.
Dr Kulka explains:
Looking at the government's goal of 1.5 million homes, our method suggests that more of that housing should be allocated to northern areas such as Leeds, Manchester and North Yorkshire to close the gap.
Our analysis also shows us that understanding how demand varies within a local authority is just as important, if not more so, than looking at demand between local authorities, if housing is to be developed in the right places.
By mapping gap and tightness for each Output Area in Britain, the WhereToBuildLink opens in a new window online tool clearly shows the areas within each local authority that should be prioritised for development when local plans are updated, and highlights areas where new housing is unlikely to sell quickly or even at all.
How should we build?
The researchers also used the data to show which types of development are best placed to solve the UK's housing shortfall.
Dr Datta and Dr Kulka identify four patterns of development – new rural developments; small town extensions; urban extensions; and densification.
Recent new building has focused on urban extensions but the greatest impact on housing demand could be achieved by increasing the amount of housing in urban centres:-
- 50 per cent of the gap could be closed by densification in places such as the London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Islington, and Camden, as well as in Bristol, Manchester, Salford, Portsmouth and Edinburgh.
- 28 per cent of the gap could be closed by urban extensions, with North Tyneside, Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames as priorities
- 16 per cent of the gap could be closed with small town extensions, with development around Dorchester in Dorset, Sheringham in Norfolk, and Saltburn in Redcar & Cleveland as priorities.
- 6 per cent of the gap would be addressed by creating new rural developments, in places such as Port Isaac, Polperro and Mousehole in Cornwall, Lower Largo in Fife, Jaywick Sands in Essex, and in East Suffolk near the coastal area of Southwold. However, rural demand may partially reflect the desire for second homes.
Solving Britain's Housing Crisis: Where and How to Build 1.5 Million HomesLink opens in a new window also highlights where the planning system itself is a barrier to solving the housing crisis. For example, 26% of the housing gap lies within areas of special planning designation such as green belt or conservation areas.
Dr Datta explains:
Over 15% of the total gap lies within greenbelts and this is particularly restrictive for the growth of cities in the north including Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Bradford, Leeds and York. Releasing restrictions on just the tenth of greenbelt area with the highest demand would close more than half of the greenbelt housing gap. Our mapping tool can help planners and policymakers make informed decisions on whether conservation or affordability should be the priority for a local community.
- Visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/cage/wheretobuild for the mapping tool and the local authority reports
- Read: Solving Britain's Housing Crisis: Where and How to Build 1.5 Million HomesLink opens in a new window. Nikhil Datta and Amrita Kulka, with research assistance from Jawad Wehbe, Edoardo Badii, Harshita Anandan and Matthew Stubbs. CAGE Research Centre Policy Report, November 2025
- Download the executive summary: Solving Britain's Housing Crisis - Executive Summary
