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14/7/25 8:13 pm
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The government’s target of 1.5 million new homes this Parliament can’t be achieved without build-to-rent (BTR) playing a key part, according to one property expert.
Following Housing Secretary Steve Reed’s promise at the Labour Party Conference to ramp up the pace of house and community-building, Andy Jones, group director of LRG Living Markets Sales, Lettings & BTR, wants Reed to implement some key changes to the sector which he insists is the fastest route to scale in modern renting.
“The government has envisaged a more professional rental sector, and BTR can deliver this,” says Jones. “But for this to be achieved, it must support the BTR sector with long-term incentives – from land release and infrastructure funding to fiscal certainty. Yet BTR is miscast as exclusive rather than mainstream while few local authorities have explicit strategies for BTR.”
While there are now 130,000 completed homes and another 160,000 in the pipeline, the government risks both missing its housing target and squandering the global investment that wants to fund UK homes, says Jones.
“Planning is where the pipeline is faltering most severely,” he adds. “Multi-family BTR submissions have collapsed by more than 75% since their peak, with co-living also in steep decline.”
Jones says the Building Safety Act, while laudable in intent, has introduced new delays, compliance costs and liability structures that make many high-rise schemes unviable. Meanwhile, an expectation that land value can endlessly fund infrastructure and levies has pushed many schemes past the tipping point of viability.
Investors are deterred less by the presence of rules than by their unpredictability and constant layering, says Jones, who suggests reforms such as rewarding pace of delivery on large sites through partnership models and master-planned public land. “With most BTR projects taking more than 3.5 years from concept to occupation, the government’s 1.5 million homes target is otherwise unachievable.”
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