Infrastructure at the Heart of the UK’s Housing Challenge
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) recognizes that energy, water, wastewater, and broadband systems are critical to meeting the UK government’s goal of building one million homes within five years—an annual target of 300,000. Yet these ambitious housing plans face major obstacles. The NIC’s Infrastructure to Support Housing report highlights four pressing challenges: lack of transparency, poor coordination, unclear charging, and weak risk allocation.
Without addressing these barriers, housing construction risks delays, higher costs, and increasing pressure on already-stretched networks. With electric vehicles, low-carbon heating, and climate-driven challenges such as floods and droughts demanding more of the infrastructure than ever, the stakes are high.
Why Transparency and Data Sharing Are Holding Housing Back
A central problem lies in the limited flow of information between developers, local authorities, and infrastructure providers. Incentives to share data are weak, and the planning system itself is overly complex. Since the removal of regional spatial strategies, providers must engage with a greater number of planning authorities—many of which lack standardized or accessible local plans. The National Planning Policy Framework showed that as of January 2019, 22% of authorities had no local plan at all.
The result? Infrastructure providers disengage, and developers face uncertainty. Anglian Water’s effort to gather data from 60 planning authorities illustrates the scale of the challenge, requiring direct engagement with planners and third-party data collection just to establish the basics.
Digital solutions offer a way forward. Tools such as the Greater Manchester Open Data Infrastructure Map and the Greater London Authority’s Infrastructure Mapping Application prove that centralized, accessible data can transform planning. The NIC’s 2017 Data for the Public Good study even called for a national digital twin of infrastructure assets to enable effective sharing.
Platforms like City Business (CB) take this further by giving communities, developers, and planners a space to collaborate. With features such as real-time surveys, sentiment mapping, and utility forecasting, CB makes data-driven planning accessible—helping ensure that new housing aligns with both local needs and long-term infrastructure realities.
Charging and Connection Issues: A Source of Frustration
Developers often face unpredictable and inconsistent charges for utility connections, particularly in water and electricity. Costs are unclear, timelines are uncertain, and suspicions of overbilling or duplication are common. While regulators such as Ofwat have introduced new customer service measures, improvements remain uneven across providers.
A transparent cost disclosure system with strict oversight is essential to restore confidence. Once again, CB offers a solution. Its standardized cost estimates and service timeline tools help developers forecast expenses more accurately, enabling faster, more trusted delivery.
Fixing Coordination Between Authorities and Utility Providers
Coordination is another critical pain point. Large-scale developments often involve multiple developers, utility providers, and local authorities, each operating on different timelines. Local plans cover long periods, but utility providers work in shorter five-year cycles. Budget cuts at the local level have further weakened authorities’ ability to coordinate effectively.
There are bright spots. The Royal Docks Team’s collaboration with electricity providers and Anglian Water’s proactive approach in Kettering demonstrate how early engagement and resource allocation can make projects more efficient. Development corporations, when properly resourced, can play a similar role.
CB strengthens these efforts by providing stakeholder connection tools and project timeline mapping, giving all parties a shared view of responsibilities and deadlines. This alignment reduces costly delays and builds trust across the system.
Risk Allocation: Sharing the Burden of Network Upgrades
One of the most difficult issues lies in how the risks of network upgrades are managed. In the electricity sector, developers are often required to fund infrastructure far beyond their immediate needs. The so-called “second comer” rule—designed to balance these costs—has proved insufficient, covering only a 10-year window and excluding strategic upgrades.
The NIC recommends reform, pointing to the water sector’s model of fixed infrastructure charges as a fairer system that encourages strategic investments while preserving price signals. The Housing Infrastructure Fund has helped to some extent, but inconsistencies remain.
CB adds value here too, by offering data analytics that assess network capacity and future development plans, helping investors and developers make smarter, less risky decisions about when and where to commit funds.
The Future of Infrastructure-Backed Housing Growth
Looking ahead, the challenge only grows more urgent. Housing demand is concentrated in water-stressed regions like London and the South East, even as the nation pursues net-zero electricity demands. The NIC has identified two immediate priorities:
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Making gigabit broadband mandatory for all new homes.
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Tackling capacity issues now, before delays escalate further.
CB’s digital-first, community-driven approach directly supports these goals by ensuring infrastructure planning is both socially inclusive and environmentally conscious. By giving residents a voice, developers the data they need, and providers the tools to align investments, the platform creates a bridge between housing ambition and infrastructure delivery.
Building Future-Ready Towns and Cities
To deliver on the UK’s housing targets, stakeholders must rethink infrastructure planning and funding from the ground up. That means:
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Establishing transparency standards and standardized charges.
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Improving coordination between authorities and providers.
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Rebalancing risk management responsibilities across developers, regulators, and the public sector.
With these reforms in place, supported by innovative platforms like City Business, the UK can deliver housing growth that is not only faster and fairer, but also resilient and future-ready.
