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The UK’s dysfunctional land market is one of the key drivers of our broken housing model. Reforming it is therefore vital to address the housing crisis. This research identifies the extent of public gain if the government builds on its predecessor’s reforms to limit the impact of ​‘hope value’ on land valuations subject to Compulsory Purchase Order.

This paper explores the extent to which this reform would enhance the financial viability of a mass social house building programme by significantly reducing the amount of grant funding required to deliver it. As our research outlines, hope value reform could reduce the public grant required to build 90,000 social homes per year by £4.5bn, shrinking the up-front overall cost by around a quarter. Alternatively, these reforms could allow the same amount of public grant to be stretched further, building an additional 27,000 social rent homes per year.

Ministers should feel emboldened to proceed with these further land reforms, enhancing the viability of a programme of mass social house building which is indispensable to resolving the housing crisis. Further reforms to hope value are vital if ministers are to build the volume of social homes required to hit their overall targets to build 1.5m new homes over this parliament.

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