Tate + Co hosted a breakfast round table at UKREiIF 2025 which focused on the challenges of delivering high quality housing on smaller sites. We had an incredible range of people around the table, housebuilders, local authorities, housing associations, contractors and consultants, who together came up with some really great ideas on how to push small site housing development. We took these ideas and collated both the scale of  the challenge and the opportunities moving forward. Our findings are summarised in our paper, Unlocking the potential of small site housing development and can be found in our News section.

Here, the edited transcript offers more insight into the discussion.

Attendees:

Jerry Tate – Director, Tate+Co Architects (Chair)

Rebecca Hall – Architect, Tate+Co Architects

Chantelle Williams – Land and Partnerships Director, Vistry South West Midlands

Daniel Murray – Head of Economic Development, Bromley Council

Faisal Butt – Head of Portfolio, L&G Affordable Homes

James Masini – Principal, Inner Circle Consulting

John Reid – Managing Director, Herts Living

Mark Powell – Managing Director, EDAROTH

Michael Anderson – Partner, Calfordseaden

Mike Axon – Director, SLR

Penny Moss – Director, Avison Young

Sharon Strutt – Assistant Director of Regeneration, London Borough of Harrow

Sophie Parker-Loftus – Studio Director, Planit

Whilst there are differing definitions of what a small site is, ranging from less than 1Ha in the NPPF to 0.25Ha or 35 Homes in the London Plan, there is no doubt that they offer a significant, and underutilised, opportunity to contribute to the 1.5 million homes that the UK government hopes to build over the next five years.

To give an example of the scale of the opportunity, the 2017 London SCHLAA assessment estimated that small sites could deliver up to 250,000 new homes over a ten-year period, accounting for nearly a third of the city’s housing target. Working from this, many London boroughs have reached similar conclusions, such as Harrow who identified in their 2022 capacity study that the borough could accommodate 4,290 new homes on small sites over a ten-year period. But it is not just about untapped capacity, small site housing developments can also deliver real benefits for communities, creating denser neighbourhoods that support better levels of social infrastructure, and remove empty, unsightly or derelict sites from an area. UK planning legislation recognises this potential, with the 2024 revision of the NPPF stating in Paragraph 69 that ‘to promote the development of a good mix of sites local authorities should ensure that at least 10% of their housing requirement is accommodated on sites no larger than one hectare’.

However, small sites face significant challenges in actually being delivered. Viability is difficult, with high build costs that, combined with high land values, make small developments financially difficult. And despite the desire to promote smaller sites, the planning system can be a barrier, being complex and time-consuming for smaller developers, with new legislation including Biodiversity Net Gain adding requirements to schemes that at a smaller scale they may struggle to achieve.

According to the Federation of Master Builders, in the 1980s 40% of new homes were delivered on smaller sites by SME housebuilders, but this figure is now 10%. We know that small sites can play a key role in housing delivery, but we need to understand how to unlock this potential. And this is where our expert panel come in to help solve this challenge.

Mike Axon: From what we see, larger sites are a much better ‘fit’ for planning policy than smaller sites in that the same rules apply no matter what the scale of development is.

Penny Moss: Yes that’s right; smaller sites have to meet the same set of rules and often at smaller scale there is a greater chance of policy ‘conflict’, where it is not physically possible to meet every criteria.

Sharon Strutt: This scale aspect also applies to viability; there is simply less ‘room for manoeuvre’ on smaller sites so if something does not work there is little available scope to fix this. As a local authority we have to be exemplary in terms of what we achieve on our sites which makes it even harder in terms of viability.

John Reid: It’s not that smaller sites are more difficult, it is that they are disproportionately difficult. On our smaller sites we are doing all the same things as our larger developments, but for less return in terms of either financial or housing delivery. For example, right now we have a nine-unit scheme on a derelict site in a high street location; because of necessary minor improvements to the layouts, we had to do a Section 73 application which means that we need to wait for a further planning determination, and in the end this is simply delaying delivery of the project. There really has to be a two-tier planning system for different scales of development.

James Masini: We work exclusively for Local Authorities and what we find is that there can be wider motivations for bringing forward small sites beyond just economic benefits; in terms of housing delivery; in terms of filling a ‘black hole’ in an area; and because there is more chance of a smaller site actually being delivered within the political five-year timescale. However, even when there is political pressure to bring forward a particular site, the awareness of the challenges can be low which means that step one has to be an education process.

Penny Moss: Asking housebuilders to take a risk when it takes a similar effort and period of time to get permission for fifteen houses as it does fifty is challenging. Even if you go down the ‘permission in principle’ route to shortcut this, there is often not enough certainty to secure key funding. And the other important point is that smaller sites are often increasing the density of occupation in an area which can mean real resistance from the local community and neighbours. So there are multiple planning challenges.

Michael Anderson: In terms of delivering smaller housing schemes, we often find there are challenges dealing with smaller contractors and suppliers in terms of their knowledge around client grant funding obligations and understanding of the affordable housing sector. For our practice (Calfordseaden), this can be a challenge on the resulting resource requirement vs project size. On the flip-side, there are huge benefits for us in terms of people development as we can train our apprentices, graduates and less experienced people with clear lines of accountability. This experience is also true of contractors and suppliers; the smaller housing sites can act as a ‘bridge’ if you want to scale up from smaller projects to bigger ones.

Sophie Parker-Loftus: The biggest challenge we find on small sites is accommodating all the, sometimes conflicting, planning requirements with less space to work with. Biodiversity Net Gain and parking requirements at national level, and the Urban Greening Factor and play-space requirements in London, can be impossible to squeeze into a smaller area. We are passionate about regenerative design and thinking beyond the red line boundary; so one tactic we are proposing is to create masterplans which brings together a collection of sites to aggregate benefits. We find this can also help the delivery aspect, with contractor capability, site access and buildability issues often being more easily resolved by a group of smaller sites being brought forward together.

Mike Axon: We create transport statements for lots of small housing developments but I genuinely don’t think these reports are needed. They are great for business but useless really, as traffic assessments for small sites cannot properly promote walking and cycling; this is something that needs to be considered at a masterplan scale. There is a growing belief at the Department of Transport in the concept of ‘professional judgement’ and that so long as the strategic aims are agreed, there should be an element of trust in terms of specific delivery for smaller schemes.

Sharon Strutt: I think it is important to note that this is not just a planning issue. I am aware that there are a lot of sites which have consent but have not been developed out. Particularly recently with small housebuilder insolvencies, there are many sites which are incredibly difficult to deliver. And often, as a Local Authority, although we have a strong ambition to have more community-led, affordable housing, our obligation to fully de-risk a project means that there is a mis-match between capacity and delivery for a site which might only be delivering a few homes.

Chantelle Williams: Often the funding for SMEs can be very challenging and time consuming. And there is a surprising lack of knowledge about how funding works, what potential grants are available from Local Authorities and how to structure a project in terms of finances. So in many ways this is an education issue about the need to develop a skill set amongst SMEs, particularly on the financial side.

John Reid: I think these are all great points as they highlight that there is a lot of complexity and we need to work out how to pass on ‘lessons learnt’ to SMEs to help them understand how to navigate all of these challenges.

Mark Powell: But the first conversation should be about reducing this complexity. We have been lucky setting up EDAROTH as we have the resources of AtkinsRéalis, but the challenges we have overcome would have destroyed an SME. Particularly in terms of social housing delivery which is really the problem to be solved, improving the way SMEs can work with, for example, Homes England could make a real difference.

Faisal Butt: In terms of social housing delivery, I find it very interesting that a lot of smaller sites are Local Authority owned. This can mean a lot of complexity for an organisation looking to partner with an authority to deliver housing. We try hard to support SME contractors and have appointed SME house builders on some of our land-led development sites who I think have been quite successful recently in creating good, small housing developments. But there is no doubt that since 2008 we have lost capacity amongst SME contractors, who would be perfect for these smaller developments.

Michael Anderson: And I think this comes back to the theme of education, with fast moving regulation it can be challenging for SME contractors to keep up. I am a trustee of a local charity in our area which provides training and information about biodiversity net gain and how SME contractors can respond on smaller sites.

Mark Powell: There is also a need for aggregating small sites together to create an environment in which SMEs can thrive. At EDAROTH we have been developing a factory-based, housing delivery process which can de-risk the on-site construction. By aggregating sites under our organisation we can strategically work through the complexities of the grants, funding and viability for multiple sites, relieving the burden on our SME partners.

Daniel Murray: At Bromley we are all about delivering council-owned, social housing but for each of our projects, viability and creating a compelling business case is a challenge. As a Local Authority, beyond the financial considerations, we have an ambition both to create economic opportunities for local SMEs and deliver new housing. So there needs to be a balance in our thinking, which means breaking down the ‘siloes’ and understanding the broader benefits of small site housing delivery.

The last thoughts from the panel were:

John Reid: I agree with Daniel’s point about siloes; we need to understand and help each other achieve our broader aims.

Penny Moss:  We need less red tape which almost certainly means a ‘two tier’ planning system.

Chantelle Williams: We should use AI to help speed up the delivery of smaller housing sites, particularly planning determination.

Mark Powell: Aggregation of smaller sites would help delivery.

Daniel Murray: Long term funding is key to smaller sites delivery.

Sophie Parker-Loftus: On Mark’s point, aggregating smaller sites would allow for broader delivery of benefits across a whole neighbourhood.

Mike Axon: Key to making sure small sites happen is the education of planning committee members.

Michael Anderson: It is not just about planning, we need to think about a flexible approach to public procurement to allow for SME delivery.

Sharon Strutt: It is an overall system challenge and we need more collaboration and communication across disciplines to help the system work better. Like this conversation!

Faisal Butt: The sites are there, the funding is there and the ambition is there. In the end it is about breaking down complexity to grasp this opportunity.

James Masini: There is a huge role that Local Authorities could play in coordinating small sites delivery, but they need enough funding to do this.

Rebecca Hall: In conclusion there needs to be a more holistic system of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

So the debate reached a surprising conclusion. Although we started by discussing planning, in the end this is only one of the challenges for delivering smaller sites housing. What we really need is incremental improvements to every part of the delivery system and we had some great suggestions:

• A two-tier planning system easing the regulation on smaller sites.
• Better training and knowledge sharing for SME housebuilders and contractors.
• Creating a more streamlined method of funding smaller site housing developers.
• Aggregate smaller sites together so that the strategic risks can be dealt with by an ‘umbrella’ organisation, allowing SMEs to focus on delivery.

Interestingly straight after our discussion the UK Government announced a raft of measures to support smaller housebuilders, some of which are very aligned with the above concepts. These new measures will be in place from May 2026 and we hope they help get small sites really contributing to the housing delivery that the UK needs.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-backs-sme-builders-to-get-britain-building

Title image: Chalkhurst Court, South London. Photography: Kilian O’Sullivan