Viability gaps are holding back the North. Join our campaign to close them

Housing providers, developers, and investors have been loud and clear about what needs to be done to achieve the government’s housing goal of 1.5m homes before the end of this Parliament. Place North has listened and is taking action.

Alongside Cavendish and Lichfields, we are launching Mind the Gap, a campaign for a government discretionary grant aid programme for the North of England.

It is time the Northern property market had a unified voice to take the issues that matter to our industry directly to Downing Street. This campaign aims to do just that.

If you work in property, you can show your support by adding your name to the signatories of this campaign – just enter your name, job title, and company below.

The North has the land, expertise, and capacity to build many more homes than it does presently. But too many sites across the North don’t stack up financially. Due to low values and high costs, sites ideally located for new homes are left undeveloped because they are not viable.

Meanwhile, public money goes too often to sites with higher values in the South, leaving the North to miss out again and again.

More funding to close the viability gap would enable far more development than has historically been the case.

It is also crucial to helping the region achieve housing targets put on it by Westminster. The North has been allocated a target of 77,452 homes to be delivered – a figure we are falling far short of. In reality, we have only been able to build 72% of that number, with just 55,912 homes built last year.

There are also 24,800 acres of brownfield land capable of holding more than 414,800 homes in the North, proving that the opportunity for the region is too great to ignore.

With the 2025 Spending Review on the horizon, it is vital that ministers recognise that increased access to grant funding for sites in the North will be essential in meeting the ambition to build 1.5m homes during this Parliament.

Dino Moutsopoulos, managing partner for Place North, explained how the Mind the Gap campaign came to be.

“Following our recent Question Time event that drew high-level property and local authority leaders together, it was evident to us that the biggest single issue threatening the government’s targets and frankly the growth and stability of the North of England is the viability gap,” he said.

“Brownfield remediation, Green Belt release, and planning reform are all important but if a huge gap remains on viability, developers and local authorities will simply not move forward.

“Place North has championed the property market for 17 years and now, with a pan-Northern position, we could help make a significant difference by creating and driving a campaign to garner signatures and to take a collective voice to Westminster prior to the Spending Review,” Moutsopoulos continued.

“Working with key partners like Cavendish and Lichfields helps support the campaign and we look forward to hearing from the market.

“I encourage all invested in the property market to sign up to the campaign and share widely in order for us to help represent you and your concerns at the highest level.”

View our Privacy Policy. Your data will only be used for the purposes of the campaign.