Sam Stafford is Managing Director of the Land, Planning and Development Federation. Here, he tells Housing View and Brookbanks about the frustrations of 2025, what the year ahead could bring, and how words need to turn into action
by Ben Wakeling
This article accompanies a podcast hosted by Brookbanks – watch the whole conversation now.
Was 2025 a good year for the residential planning sector?
This is, according to Sam Stafford, Managing Director of the Land, Planning and Development Federation (LPDF), a “really good question”.
“My sense towards the end of 2025 was almost a degree of frustration,” he says. “The new government back in the middle of 2024 went big early, with two very significant interventions insofar as changes to the standard method for calculating housing need are concerned. That was big, but arguably the grey belt proposition was bigger: fundamentally, housing on land that for a generation has been inappropriate in planning terms in certain circumstances is now appropriate.”
With Labour out of the blocks quickly in 2024, the planning sector could be forgiven for expecting great things from 2025. What they got was a series of working papers at the start of the year (“a good way of testing industry sentiment on live issues”), but then it seemed to go quiet.
“There was encouragement earlier in the year that the government were grasping with some of the more practical day-to-day issues,” reflects Sam, “but then there was a sense of drift.”
However, December 2025 saw the publication of a raft of proposed reforms and planning system changes via the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was immediately downloaded, printed and pored over by planning and housing enthusiasts up and down the country.
The LPDF offered a quote to the press when the NPPF emerged to applaud the government for following through with commitments to get planning reforms in place, and the enaction of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
Sam describes these as the “building blocks” of the planning system, but follows the LPDF’s plaudits with a word of caution: “We’ve had the year of reform. We’ve got the building blocks. Now, let’s get on and focus on delivery.”
My sense towards the end of 2025 was almost a degree of frustration.
So the plans are in place, I say. But are there enough planning officers to deal with the applications which could come flooding in?
I’m looking at it too simplistically, responds Sam. “Of course there has been a hollowing out of the number of planners working in the public sector, but it’s not just resources, I don’t think. Lichfields and the LPDF published some research in the spring of 2025, the headline of which was major outline applications taking two years in 2024 compared to eight months in 2014.
“You’d think that would be because there aren’t enough planning officers, but actually that’s based on fewer planning applications, so I think we need to be thinking about productivity and the way these applications are being transacted.”
For example: planning officers currently have to wait for responses from both statutory and non-statutory consultees. At the other end of the process there are delays attributed to Section 106 agreements, which involve a whole host of other parties.
“Yes, we need more experienced, confident planners working in local authority environments that are incentivised to want to see things happen, but those application time frames only come down by taking a kind of whole-system approach.”
I think we need to be thinking about productivity and the way these applications are being transacted.
The LPDF is a member-led organisation that represents and supports professionals and organisations involved in land, planning and development. Their members are often at the coal-face when it comes to delivering new homes during a housing crisis.
I ask Sam what is on the organisation’s wish-list for Steve Reed and Matthew Pennycook in 2026; the bold decisions they should make this year.
“We now know with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the NPPF the planning system the government would like to see at the end of this parliament. There is a clear drive there for a more procedural planning system, a route map to approvals,” he responds.
“Underneath that, there are spatial development strategies which are going to be key to dealing with the unmet need coming out of towns and cities that hasn’t been dealt with before. I’d go back to where we started, about building blocks and subsequent delivery.”
In the meantime, LPDF members are struggling with a fairly stagnant housing market (“we’re talking rates of sale not seen since the credit crunch”, says Sam).
“We worked with Savills [prior to the Autumn Budget] to get a submission into the Treasury to highlight the scale of the issue and table some constructive solutions as to what support for first-time buyers might look like.”
The Treasury did not listen, but Sam and his team remain undeterred, committing to “making some noise” on the same topic ahead of the Spring Statement, alongside calls to resolve the unmet need around industrial and logistics space.
The coming twelve months, then, should see proposals turn into action, and reform turn into delivery. The industry waits with bated breath; meanwhile, the target of 1.5 million homes edges ever closer.
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