Britain Must Say Yes to Building Beautifully
Construction site during sunset. Image credits: Kawser Hamid
In its manifesto last year, Labour promised to build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this parliament. It is the right pledge: Britain’s housing crisis is strangling hardworking families, trapping renters and, by fermenting structural friction, withholding what seems to be Labour’s only chance for 2029 electoral success - economic growth. But, unless the government can resist the politics of NIMBYism, this target will inevitably fail.
‘Not In My Backyard’ (NIMBY) has become the defining British veto. Councils and ministers, regularly erstwhile YIMBYs, too-often cave to local campaigns against new housing and infrastructure projects. These campaigns frequently cite concerns over increased traffic or the availability of public infrastructure, and often want to protect village character or maintain the sanctity of the green belt. The result? A country short of at least 4.3 million homes and an economy starved by their scarcity.
The costs are everywhere. In 2024, the average rent to income ratio in England was 36.3%, significantly higher than that of neighbouring countries. The figure for major cities was even higher. Meanwhile, families crowd into damp flats while waiting-lists for social housing are decades long – an average of 27 years in London. Moreover, workers often commute absurd distances because they simply cannot afford to live where they work. This is not merely a lifestyle inconvenience - it is a drag on national prosperity. The intimate relationship between labour mobility and economic growth is a fundamental and well-established concept in economics. Simply, mobility allows resources, in this case labour, to go to where they are most productive. A stagnant housing market, through supply shortages and exacerbated by a punitive taxation system, hinders workers from being able to move to where their skills are most required, and likely best paid! On top of this, it creates a sense of entrapment and disillusionment, in which people feel unable to enact agency on the most fundamental of life choices – where they live. So, the solution is invariably to build more houses, but how can this square with liberal principles of local governance that have hitherto tended to legitimise NIMBYism? Should the government override local opinion for the greater good?
No. To dismiss all local resistance as selfish is overly simplistic. The philosopher and aestheticist, Roger Scruton, for all his less-than-desirable political opinions, understood that communities matter. His philosophy insisted that people care about beauty and about passing on something cherished, creating an inter-generational lineage of pride of place. Too often, new estates in Britain are objectively ugly: copy-and-paste boxes dumped carelessly on the edge of existing towns, designed for developers’ ease rather than people’s lives. Simply regarding aesthetics, it is understandable why communities do not want such dreary architecture in their back yard.
Scruton’s insight is crucial. People oppose change when it feels imposed and aesthetically insipid. They are far more willing to embrace new housing if it respects local character, provides amenities, and looks like somewhere that they would be proud to live. Indeed, in one 2018 poll, 84% of respondents directly linked happiness with well-designed places. The lesson is simple: beauty is a necessary condition for popular consent, not a luxury.
The green belt exposes the same tension. Devised in the 1950s to prevent urban sprawl, it now covers over 12% of England’s land area. Most of it is indeed beautiful rolling countryside, forests or waterways – undoubtedly worth protecting. But much of it is scrubland, beside motorways or derelict sites near railway stations. Therefore, treating all green belt land as sacred is not conservation, but mere inertia. Labour is right to talk about releasing this so-called ‘grey belt’ land for development. The test will be whether ministers can withstand the local outrage that ensues.
A common argument in favour of current building practices is one of cost – identical and simple houses are cheaper to build, and thus lead to lower house prices. On the surface this makes sense, and is, to some extent, true in the short term. However, a contrary logic contends that, if more building proposals were accepted, as a result of being more appealing to the local community, the supply of housing would move closer to matching demand – thereby reducing the market pressures that keep house prices high. It would follow that, in the long run, despite potentially higher building costs, house prices would fall.
Furthermore, the moral case for structural reform is inescapable. NIMBYism entrenches economic privilege as, when local vetoes block development, the beneficiaries are the older, wealthier homeowners who see their assets rise in value, while the costs fall on younger workers and renters. This dynamic entrenches intergenerational inequality, already a source of long-term economic trouble as the dependency ratio continues to increase. It turns housing, once a means of stability and a right-of-passage into independent adulthood, into a dividing line of class and age. Homeownership rates among 25 to 34-year-olds have significantly declined since the early 1990s (67% to 43%), while they have increased among older age groups. Indeed, inherited wealth now often plays a larger role than effort or saving in determining life chances. Reforming the housing and planning system is therefore not just an economic necessity, it is a matter of social justice. Moreover, the current system corrodes the very idea of community stewardship. Scruton emphasises that to conserve is to pass on something of value. A system that protects the views of a vocal few at the expense of future generations’ homes betrays that principle.
So, what must Labour do? First, it must make housing targets legally binding and strip local authorities of the ability to drag their feet. For this, communication is vital. The importance of this as a national imperative, holistically across the economy, must be made thoughtfully, to dispel the inevitable claims of creeping-authoritarianism, while retaining local authorities’ power in certain aspects of decision-making. Second, it must confront the green belt myth with honesty, thoughtfully distinguishing functionally (agricultural) and aesthetically (national parks) valuable countryside from land that could host expandable and well-connected neighbourhoods. Third, though often positive first steps, it should avoid resorting entirely to technocratic sticking-plaster policies such as incremental tax reform and amendments to renters’ rights. It should be much bolder. Finally, it must enforce significantly higher design standards: walkable layouts, green spaces, mandating local infrastructure investment and requiring architecture that reflects and compliments local norms and history. This will ensure that communities feel growth as a shared, not imposed, mission.
If achieved, the economic gains would be transformational. It is simple, more homes means more home ownership. More homes allow disposable income to be spent in the real economy, rather than diverted into landlords’ savings’. More homes allow workers to move to where they are most productive, reducing frictional unemployment. Most importantly, more homes means an economic growth rooted in fairness.
The political gains would be greater still, a particularly enticing prospect for a government with unprecedentedly poor first-year polling. With adroit communication, Labour could frame housebuilding as a moral imperative, not merely a technocratic necessity. Starmer could canonise himself in British political thought as the Labour answer to housing, as Attlee was to healthcare.
Scruton was right that we should conserve what is beautiful. Furthermore, a disciple of Burke, he also preached stewardship - leaving the world better for those who follow. Today, Britain’s housing shortage clearly betrays that duty. If, as a society, we wish to conserve, we must also create. For decades, NIMBYism has been the pervasive veto to British development. Crucially, this should not be a partisan issue, as it is fundamental to the national interest. If Britain wishes to emerge from its current stagnation, we must replace our instinctive ‘no’ with a thoughtful yet ambitious ‘yes’. We must accept house building, even if it is in our back yard, but we should demand that it is beautiful!
