The value of land designated for housing should be frozen to deter speculators and reduce the cost of new homes under proposed reforms being announced today by an influential think tank.
Agricultural land approved by local authorities for housing can increase in value by 100 times, driving up the cost of even “affordable” homes, the Institute for Public Policy Research claims.
A hectare of agricultural land in Oxfordshire is worth about £25,000 but with residential planning permission typically rises to £5.6m, 224 times higher, the left-wing institute says. The value of land accounted for about half the price of a home in 1995 but by 2016 this had risen above 70%.
