Are the Conservatives really YIMBY? — A long read on planning history, 1909–2025

09 Aug, 2025

TL;DR: England has achieved high housing delivery under two different recipes: an interwar, private‑led surge under looser controls, and a post‑war model that paired planning restraint with strong state capacity. Since the late 1970s, Conservative governments dismantled the state‑building arm without liberalising land and later prioritised local consent and aesthetics over binding supply levers. None of this means YIMBYism is inherently left or right — in fact, if YIMBY becomes partisan, it ossifies into a mirror‑image of NIMBYism. Durable reform needs cross‑party institutions that release land, service it, and keep a predictable pipeline for both public and private builders.

Why this post

This is a history-and-institutions piece, making the case that YIMBYism works only when the machinery of delivery is shared and durable.

Some Conservatives today argue for urban densification, higher targets, and transit-oriented growth — aims that recall England’s most successful periods of housing delivery. But those successes were underpinned by state-backed platforms, predictable funding, and the political will to plan and build for the public good over decades.

Without that machinery, pro-housing rhetoric cannot overcome entrenched scarcity — and if YIMBYism becomes the preserve of one party, it will prove too brittle to survive the electoral cycle.

First principles: what would count as real YIMBYism?

Four tests, plus one:

1. Supply outcomes — Are we delivering enough homes to meet need, year after year?
2. Political will — Do ministers spend capital against their own side’s veto players when it matters?
3. Systemic design — Do rules reliably release land and convert permissions into homes at pace?
4. Tenure mix — Does policy widen access in the places of highest demand (ownership, rental, affordable) rather than just headline numbers?
5. Coalition breadth — Can the reforms survive a change of government? If not, they will be undone at the next election cycle.

Keep these in view as we walk the history.

Before 1947: The Market-Led Era

In the decades before the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, housing delivery was driven almost entirely by market forces. Landowners could sell or build on much of their land with minimal regulatory oversight. Output was high by later standards, particularly in periods of economic growth, with speculative builders responding quickly to demand in expanding cities and suburbs.

But this laissez-faire model brought well-documented problems: ribbon development along new arterial roads, speculative estates built ahead of infrastructure, and poor-quality housing for the working class unless provided by municipalities or philanthropic trusts. Industrial uses often sat uncomfortably alongside residential streets. Many new suburbs lacked parks, schools, sewers, or coherent street patterns, creating long-term service deficits.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – On raw numbers, the pre-1947 market often delivered strongly. Yet delivery was cyclical and geographically uneven, tied closely to private profit rather than strategic need. In downturns, output collapsed.
• Political will – Government largely stood back, intervening only in moments of acute social pressure (e.g. post-WWI “Homes Fit for Heroes”) rather than sustaining a continuous programme.
• Systemic design – There was no mechanism to coordinate land release with infrastructure, employment, or environmental protection. Sprawl and service gaps were common.
• Tenure mix – The private market prioritised middle-class owner-occupation. Affordable housing for low-income households relied on separate municipal action, with limited reach in high-demand areas.
• Coalition breadth – The laissez-faire approach reflected the dominant political consensus of the interwar period but had no resilience against the post-war political shift. Once reformers made the case for national planning, there was little institutional resistance to abandoning the old system.

The shortcomings of this era — not only in quality but in the mismatch between location, infrastructure, and social need — provided much of the political fuel for the sweeping planning reforms of 1947.

1947–1979: The Era of Public-Led Expansion

The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 marked a decisive break from the pre-war market-led approach. Development rights were effectively nationalised: landowners could not build without permission, and planning authorities — guided by national policy — controlled land release. Alongside this, local authorities and new town corporations undertook large-scale public housebuilding, funded and directed by central government.

This system coincided with an extraordinary expansion of housing delivery, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Council housing accounted for around half of new completions, often built to high space standards and integrated with new infrastructure, from schools to transport links. The New Towns programme and comprehensive urban redevelopment schemes reshaped Britain’s urban geography.

But the model had weaknesses: heavy reliance on public capital meant output was vulnerable to fiscal tightening; the discretionary nature of planning introduced delays and politicisation; and, by the 1970s, design and maintenance failures in some estates fed public disillusionment.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – For much of this period, the UK built more than 300,000 homes annually, consistently meeting or exceeding need. Public housebuilding filled the gap left by cyclical private-sector output, ensuring continuity.
• Political will – Strong. Ministers in both Labour and Conservative governments pushed large programmes despite opposition from some local landowners and ratepayers.
• Systemic design – The state could align land release, infrastructure, and housing output in a way the pre-war market could not. But the discretionary planning framework also embedded bureaucratic complexity and case-by-case decision-making.
• Tenure mix – Much broader than before. Council housing, often at genuinely affordable rents, was widely available; homeownership also rose as the private sector continued building for sale.
• Coalition breadth – Initially high: both parties backed large-scale public housing, even if they differed on emphasis. However, by the late 1970s, Conservative thinking was shifting towards homeownership as the dominant tenure, setting up the ideological pivot of the Thatcher era.

This was the high-water mark of Britain’s capacity to deliver at scale — a rare period when planning, public investment, and political consensus aligned to meet housing need.

1979–1997: The Right to Buy Era and the Retreat of the State

Margaret Thatcher’s government inherited a planning system still capable of coordinating high-volume delivery — but it also inherited a fiscal climate hostile to large-scale public capital spending. The flagship policy of this period was Right to Buy (Housing Act 1980), which gave millions of council tenants the ability to purchase their homes at a discount. This dramatically expanded homeownership, but without replacing the sold stock, it permanently reduced the pool of social housing.

At the same time, direct public housebuilding collapsed. By the late 1980s, annual council completions were a fraction of their 1970s level. The private sector was expected to pick up the slack, but planning policy — still discretionary, still localised — was not substantially reformed to speed up land release or permissions. Instead, the period saw growing emphasis on development control and environmental constraint, particularly through the protection of the Green Belt and the rise of development plan policies that curtailed urban expansion.

Infrastructure provision increasingly lagged behind housing delivery, with transport and utilities often outside the scope of local planning control. By the early 1990s, completions had fallen well below the post-war norm, and the system was locked into a lower-output equilibrium.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – No. Total completions fell to levels not seen since the interwar years, and the structural capacity to deliver at scale was lost. The private sector alone did not reach post-war peaks.
• Political will – Mixed. The government spent significant political capital on Right to Buy but avoided major confrontation with anti-development interests over land release or planning reform.
• Systemic design – Weakening. The state’s ability to directly commission housing at scale was dismantled, but the discretionary planning system was left intact — a mismatch that meant no actor could guarantee delivery.
• Tenure mix – Narrowed sharply. Affordable rented housing stock was depleted without adequate replacement, pushing more households into private renting or onto waiting lists.
• Coalition breadth – Low and declining. While Right to Buy was popular, the erosion of public housebuilding capacity deepened partisan divides over housing policy.

This was the decisive break with the post-war settlement: a shift from a mixed economy of housing delivery to a market-dominated model, without the systemic reforms needed to make that market deliver at scale.

1997–2010: New Labour’s Targets, Brownfield First, and the Regional Experiment

When New Labour came to power in 1997, the housing system was still shaped by two decades of retrenchment. Council building was negligible, the private sector had normalised lower output, and household growth was rising fast. Labour’s approach combined two core ideas: a focus on regeneration (particularly brownfield reuse) and a new regionalised planning framework.

The 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act replaced structure and local plans with regional spatial strategies (RSS) and local development frameworks (LDFs). Central government set housing targets regionally, with an expectation that local authorities would allocate sufficient land to meet them. Funding was tied to delivery through mechanisms like the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant.

Urban policy emphasised brownfield first — a sequential test that pushed development toward previously developed land, often in urban centres. This aligned with sustainability goals and political resistance to greenfield release, but in practice limited total land supply in many high-demand areas. While output rose in the early 2000s, it was still below post-war averages, and highly vulnerable to economic shocks. The 2008 financial crisis triggered a collapse in private completions, revealing the fragility of a market-dependent system.

Labour did expand affordable housing investment, particularly through housing associations, but the overall tenure mix continued to drift toward private renting. The aspiration for large-scale new settlements (e.g., eco-towns) rarely translated into delivered schemes, in part because the planning system remained slow and adversarial for strategic-scale projects.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – Partial. Output improved compared to the early 1990s, peaking in the mid-2000s, but never reached the levels needed to close the backlog — and collapsed after 2008.
• Political will – Moderate. Labour imposed housing targets on resistant authorities, but often compromised to avoid sustained political conflict over greenfield release.
• Systemic design – Mixed. Regional planning gave a spatial framework for delivery, but brownfield prioritisation constrained flexibility, and development control remained reactive rather than enabling.
• Tenure mix – Some improvement. Affordable housing delivery rose via housing associations, but owner-occupation rates peaked early and declined; private renting grew as a residual.
• Coalition breadth – Fragile. Regional strategies were politically divisive, particularly in Conservative-led shires, and were abolished at the first change of government.

This was the last serious attempt to run a strategic, cross-boundary housing policy in England. Its partial successes and eventual dismantling illustrate the central point: without durable cross-party consensus, structural reforms are one electoral cycle away from reversal.

2010–2015: The Coalition Years — Localism, NPPF, and the Great Unwind

When the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition took office in 2010, one of its first moves was to scrap Labour’s regional spatial strategies. This was framed as restoring local control — but in practice it removed the only binding cross-boundary housing targets in England.

The flagship Localism Act 2011 introduced neighbourhood planning and a “duty to co-operate” between councils, replacing regional oversight. While neighbourhood plans could allocate housing, the incentive structure skewed toward resisting change. The 2012 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) simplified planning guidance and nominally introduced a “presumption in favour of sustainable development” — but left the mechanics of land release in local hands.

On paper, the NPPF required councils to meet objectively assessed housing need (OAN). In reality, without regional enforcement, many authorities under-assessed need or failed to adopt up-to-date plans, creating a vacuum that speculative applications exploited. Affordable housing investment fell sharply as grant funding was cut, and the tenure mix shifted further toward market delivery.

This period also saw the Help to Buy equity loan scheme (2013) — boosting demand without tackling supply constraints — and the expansion of permitted development rights, particularly office-to-residential conversions. The latter delivered units quickly but often of poor quality and in inappropriate locations.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – Weak. Output remained depressed in the early 2010s, recovering only slowly after the post-2008 trough.
• Political will – Low. Ministers prioritised dismantling Labour’s framework over sustaining supply, avoiding direct confrontation with resistant councils.
• Systemic design – Flawed. The “duty to co-operate” proved toothless; without a higher-tier allocator, housing geography fragmented.
• Tenure mix – Deteriorated. Affordable housing output fell; private renting rose further as affordability worsened.
• Coalition breadth – Absent. The reforms entrenched a polarised politics of housing, setting the stage for future reversals.

Far from a YIMBY turn, the coalition years were a decisive shift back toward local veto points and away from strategic planning.

2015–2019: Conservative Majority — Deregulation without Direction

With a Conservative majority after 2015, housing policy kept the NPPF framework but layered in piecemeal deregulatory measures rather than systemic fixes.

The Housing and Planning Act 2016 emphasised “Starter Homes” — discounted market units for first-time buyers — but with weak delivery mechanisms and at the expense of traditional affordable housing obligations. The Act also extended permitted development rights further, again privileging speed over quality and bypassing local plan-led allocations.

The government introduced the Housing Delivery Test (2017) to hold underperforming councils to account, but its triggers were too soft, allowing many to avoid substantive change. Meanwhile, the 2017 “Fixing our broken housing market” white paper acknowledged deep structural problems but shied away from land market reform or regional coordination.

By this period, London’s output was constrained by its green belt, high build costs, and local opposition, while high-demand regional cities often lacked the political clout to force through urban expansion. The tenure mix continued to skew toward market sale, with affordable and social rent lagging far behind historic norms.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – Marginal improvement, but still below the levels needed to meet assessed need. Gains owed more to cyclical recovery than policy design.
• Political will – Patchy. Ministers occasionally talked tough but avoided challenging the most entrenched local veto players.
• Systemic design – Weak. No replacement for strategic planning; reliance on ad-hoc measures and national targets without enforcement.
• Tenure mix – Imbalanced. Continued erosion of social and affordable housing; demand-side subsidies inflated prices.
• Coalition breadth – Lacking. Policies were partisan and reactive, making them easy to reverse or dilute.

The May government’s rhetoric about fixing the broken housing market rang hollow without the structural reforms — especially to land supply — that could have moved the system toward genuine YIMBY outcomes.

2019–2024: Johnson, Truss, Sunak — Reform, Revolt, Retreat

The 2019 manifesto promised 300,000 homes a year and a “once-in-a-generation” planning reform. The Johnson government’s Planning for the Future White Paper (2020) proposed zoning-style designations (“growth”, “renewal”, “protection”), a stronger national design code, and a central role for housing targets. In principle, this was the most structurally YIMBY package since 1947 — faster plan-making, automatic outline permission in growth zones, and digitised local plans.

But the politics unravelled quickly. The proposals triggered a backbench revolt in the Conservative heartlands, where MPs feared losing marginal seats to anti-development campaigns. Ministers watered down or abandoned the most ambitious elements, reverting to modest tweaks in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (2023). Housing targets were made “advisory,” gutting their enforcement power, while local control over allocations was strengthened in high-demand but politically sensitive areas.

Liz Truss’s brief premiership flirted with radical deregulation but lacked the parliamentary time and authority to deliver. Rishi Sunak’s government prioritised appeasing the same veto players who had sunk the 2020 reforms. Permitted development rights were extended yet again, and rhetoric shifted toward “gentle densification” and brownfield-first development — popular talking points that, in practice, released too little land in the locations of highest demand.

By the end of 2024, the government’s housing delivery record was slipping below target. The policy environment favoured incrementalism over systemic change, and the foundational problem — the mismatch between politically acceptable locations for new housing and the actual geography of demand — remained unresolved.

Does it meet the tests?

• Supply outcomes – Missed the 300,000-home target; delivery increasingly reliant on permitted development and short-term incentives.
• Political will – Failed. Ministers repeatedly retreated in the face of internal party opposition.
• Systemic design – Abandoned. The most potentially transformative elements of Planning for the Future were stripped out.
• Tenure mix – Continued decline in social rent and shared ownership proportion in high-demand areas.
• Coalition breadth – Absent. Policy became even more partisan and reactive, making any gains fragile.

The idea vs the record: is YIMBYism “conservative” in Britain?

Modern Conservative advocates often frame YIMBYism in terms that sit comfortably with the party’s own heritage: building more homes delivers ownership, enterprise, independence, and stewardship. It sounds like a direct descendant of Macmillan’s promise to build 300,000 homes a year — and, in the post-war decades, mid-century Conservatives did help deliver exactly that.

But the means were very different from today’s rhetoric. That record was achieved under a state-platformed, mixed-economy machine: binding national targets tied to land release, powerful delivery bodies like New Town Development Corporations, predictable mechanisms for land value capture, and a political willingness to override local opposition in the name of national growth. These were not marginal tweaks — they were heavy, institutional levers, designed to run for decades.

Since the late 1970s, however, the Conservative Party has steadily dismantled those levers. The 1980 Right to Buy, while hugely popular, was not paired with replacement programmes, eroding the social housing stock without sustaining output. Planning reforms shifted towards discretionary, locally mediated consent — increasing the points of veto — while central investment in large-scale delivery withered. Even when housing targets have been announced, they have rarely been tied to automatic land release or backed by enforcement strong enough to bite.

The result is a four-decade pattern: pro-housing language in manifestos and speeches, but avoidance of the specific, cross-party institutions that actually deliver abundance. Those institutions — binding targets, delivery platforms, predictable value capture, real enforcement — are not inherently left or right. They are neutral tools. And without them, pro-housing rhetoric is cosmetic; the structures of scarcity remain intact.

Why YIMBY must be cross‑party (or it curdles into NIMBYism)

1. Stability: Land, infrastructure and plan‑making work on decade‑long cycles; partisan reform is too brittle to survive them.
2. Geography: High‑demand metros and edges cross party lines; a one‑party strategy instantly creates veto blocs in the other party’s heartlands.
3. Institutional memory: Delivery bodies learn by doing; lurches in policy erase capability.
4. Movement health: A partisan YIMBY brand invites “counter‑mobilisation” — the classic NIMBY playbook — and turns every site into a culture‑war proxy.

Bottom line: A partisan YIMBYism is self‑defeating. It becomes another veto coalition by a different name.

What a cross‑party YIMBY deal could look like

• Bind numbers to land: Mandatory, transparent targets that automatically trigger land release near jobs and transit, including strategic green‑belt reviews where public value is low.
• Front‑load infrastructure: Modern development corporations/New Towns to assemble land, service sites and deliver at pace, with predictable central co‑funding.
• Predictable value capture: A clear national mechanism to fund infrastructure without killing marginal schemes — replacing ad‑hoc, lawyer‑driven bargaining.
• By‑right urban codes: Station‑area and high‑demand‑area design codes (mansion blocks/terraces 4–8 storeys) that grant permission by right; parking minimum reform.
• Enforcement that bites: Credible sanctions for persistent non‑delivery; statutory time limits that default approvals where codes are met.
• A modest public option: Continuous public building to stabilise cycles and set a floor under output.
• Sunset and review: Lock periodic bipartisan reviews into statute so rules adjust without collapsing the system.

Conclusion: Are the Conservatives really YIMBY?

Historically, Conservatives have been effective YIMBYs only when operating a delivery system they inherited — one they neither invented nor preserved. Since the early 1980s, the party’s housing interventions have been framed as empowering local communities, cutting “red tape,” or incentivising private developers. Those can be legitimate aims, but they have not added up to the binding, state-backed, cross-cycle machinery that actually turns land into homes at the scale England needs.

When Conservative YIMBYism avoids the core institutions — binding numbers to land, modern delivery corporations, predictable value capture, and real sanctions for non-delivery — it remains hostage to the same veto coalitions that sustain scarcity. Worse, if the movement wraps itself in a single party’s colours, it invites retaliation in kind: every change of government becomes a chance to dismantle the system, and every housing proposal becomes another trench in the culture war.

That does not make YIMBYism a left project. It makes it a project that can only succeed if it is bigger than the electoral cycle — a coalition of reformers willing to sign up to rules that outlast their own tenure in power.

If Conservatives genuinely want to be YIMBY — not just to own the label — the path is clear: sign up to a bipartisan deal that binds numbers to land, rebuilds delivery capacity, and enforces against persistent non-delivery. Accept that delivery requires institutions with teeth, not just aspirations with hashtags. Anything less will look, and perform, like NIMBYism by another name.