<p><span>The government must take “urgent action” to boost the number of planning permissions being granted if it wants to hit its homes target, according to research published today (June 1) by planning consultancy Lichfields.</span><span></span></p><p><span>The report - <a href="https://www.hbf.co.uk/documents/11045/LPDF_-_Taking_stock_Research_-_May21_Final.pdf"><i>Taking Stock: the geography of housing need, permissions and completions</i></a> - jointly commissioned by the Home Builders Federation (HBF) and the Land Promoters and Developers Federation (LPDF), finds that planning permission for around 520,000 houses each year needs to be granted to ensure that 300,000 homes a year are built, due to permissions being delayed, replanned or lapsing.</span></p><p><span>The required level compares with 372,000 new permissions that the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) recorded in 2019.</span></p><p><span>The research, which examines the existing pipeline of sites for homes development against the government’s homes target for England, rejects recent claims from the Local Government Association (LGA) that the number of unimplemented planning consents at 1.1 million amounts to developers “landbanking”.</span></p><p><span>With a range of factors in play regarding unimplemented permissions, including land acquisitions, discharge of planning conditions and replanning, the report’s authors stated that the number of consents needed “is in fact a minimum of 1.7 million”.</span></p><p><span>And with the 300,000-homes target meaning a five-year planning …