Elaine Farquharson-Black attended a recent Housing Roundtable in Dundee (organised by The Courier) to discuss the scale and complexity of the challenges facing housing delivery across the Dundee city region. During the evening, the point was made that Scotland is “a region” from the UK national housebuilders’ perspective, competing for investment alongside all of their English regions.
That is true at Government level too, with housing increasingly being recognised as essential economic infrastructure, supporting labour mobility, business investment and regeneration.
While, unusually, planning wasn’t identified as the main blocker to delivery (having lost its crown to viability), there remains a question of whether Scotland's planning system is evolving quickly enough to remain competitive in attracting the capital required to deliver the homes which Scotland urgently needs.
Demand is not the problem
The living sector continues to attract significant investor interest.
Across the UK, institutional capital remains focused on build-to-rent, single-family rental housing, student accommodation and other residential asset classes. Investment volumes have remained strong and major investors continue to view residential property as an attractive long-term asset class.
At the same time, both the Scottish and UK Governments continue to place housing delivery at the centre of policy. Scotland has increased funding for affordable housing and reaffirmed its commitment to ambitious delivery targets, while England has committed substantial long-term investment to affordable housing provision.
Yet despite investor appetite and political commitment, housing delivery remains stubbornly difficult.
As participants flagged at the roundtable, development viability continues to be affected by construction costs, financing costs, infrastructure requirements and an increasingly complex regulatory environment. The industry continues to voice concerns about development pipelines and challenges in bringing forward new housing at the scale required.
There is no shortage of demand for homes. The challenge is getting them built.
Why planning suddenly matters more
Planning has always mattered. But in a constrained market, it matters even more.
Investors today can often choose between different locations, different sectors and different jurisdictions. Residential capital is more mobile than it was a decade ago. Pension funds and institutional investors are increasingly assessing opportunities across the UK and beyond.
In that context, certainty becomes a commercial advantage and a planning system that provides a predictable route to development can help unlock investment. A system perceived as slow, uncertain or overly complex can have the opposite effect.
This is not an argument that planning should become a rubber-stamping exercise. Good planning remains critical to delivering sustainable places and securing high-quality development.
However, there is an important distinction between necessary scrutiny and avoidable uncertainty. Investors understand planning risk. What they are increasingly less willing to accept is planning unpredictability.
The message coming from England
Recent planning reforms in England have been accompanied by a clear political narrative.
Planning is being positioned as a tool for growth and housing delivery. Reforms to national planning policy have sought to strengthen the presumption in favour of development, place greater emphasis on housing delivery and provide greater certainty around decision-making.
Whether those reforms ultimately deliver the number of homes expected remains to be seen, but the direction of travel and the messaging is significant.
The debate in England is increasingly focused on how planning can facilitate growth, rather than whether it should.
And that, inevitably, raises a question for Scotland.
Are we communicating the same level of ambition to investors?
Scotland's opportunity
Scotland has its own planning system, policy priorities and housing challenges. A distinct approach to planning reform is entirely legitimate. The real issue is competitiveness.
When investment committees assess opportunities, they do not compare Scotland with an idealised planning system. They compare Scotland with alternative locations where capital might be deployed.
That means Scotland needs to be able to demonstrate not only that it wants housing investment, but also that it can facilitate delivery.
Scotland already has many of the ingredients that investors are seeking; strong city regions, attractive rental markets, significant regeneration opportunities and continuing demand for new homes. These all make a compelling investment case.
The challenge is ensuring that development can progress with sufficient certainty and pace to convert investor interest into housing delivery.
Housing policy is economic policy
Perhaps the most important shift in recent years is that growing political recognition that housing policy and economic policy are fundamentally connected. The recent Scottish Programme for Government 2026-2032 identifies housing delivery as a core engine for regional construction jobs and economic output.
A lack of housing affects labour mobility. It influences where businesses invest. It impacts productivity, infrastructure investment and regional growth.
That is why housing delivery has become such a prominent feature of economic policy discussions across the UK.
Once housing is viewed as economic infrastructure, planning reform takes on a different significance. The efficiency of the planning system is no longer solely a planning issue. It becomes a question of economic competitiveness.
That should shape how we assess future planning reforms in Scotland.
The test should not simply be whether the planning system produces better paperwork or faster procedures. It should be whether it helps deliver the homes, investment and growth that Scotland needs.
Planning ahead
Too often planning debates become consumed by technical discussions about policy wording, consultation responses and procedural reform and they miss the bigger picture.
The real competition is no longer between planning philosophies. It is between places. Between countries.
The jurisdictions that successfully combine ambitious housing targets with certainty of delivery will be best placed to attract investment and accelerate housing delivery.
Scotland has the opportunity to be among them. But we need to get a move on.
Contributors
Partner
Senior Associate
