Members of the UK Property Forums Editorial Board have been giving their views on measures in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Autumn Statement – and there was little approval.
While there were positive measures, many of our board noted the lack of effective moves to support the planning system and many were disappointed by additional taxes. At best, some suggested it could have been worse.
William Nassau-Lake, partner and head of development & house building for Boyes Turner, said: “The Autumn Budget 2025 places added pressure on many SME property developers. It freezes income tax thresholds — increasing ‘stealth tax’ for those drawing salaries or dividends.
“A new annual mansion tax on high-value homes over £2 million kicks in from April 2028.
“Although business-rate reliefs will ease for retail/hospitality, higher multipliers for properties over £500,000 will raise holding costs for warehouses or larger developments.
“Retirement-savings and dividend tax hikes will make financing via personal companies costlier – squeezing returns for developers working via SPVs.
“Notably, there will not be any changes to SDLT despite widespread speculation. It remains to be seen how the changes may indirectly affect the delivery of new homes by SME developers.”
Paul Silver, chief executive of Dorchester Living, said: “My hope is that housing remains a genuine priority for the Government following today’s Budget, not just in words, but in action. Housing and infrastructure are fundamental to the strength and stability of our economy, we need clear, consistent incentives that genuinely support delivery across the sector.
“As for the wider economic landscape, we desperately needed a balanced but deflationary Budget to bring down interest rates and stimulate investment and growth. Time will tell whether the measures announced will be enough, though stronger income restraint would likely have been a more effective route.
“It is also glaringly obvious that the current tax burden, now at record levels, is unsustainable in a highly mobile world. Successive governments must know this, yet for years have avoided addressing the underlying structural problems.
“We can remain a responsible society by targeting support where it is most needed, but unless we reduce the size of the state over successive budgets, the UK risks continuing on a structural downward path, driving away talent and wealth and ultimately causing greater hardship for everyone.”
David Ramsay, partner, head of planning at Vail Williams, which has a base in Woking, said: “From a planning perspective, today’s Budget reinforces the Government’s ambition to deliver the ‘most ambitious’ planning reforms in a generation, with the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill positioned as the key vehicle to unlock new housing and critical infrastructure once it becomes law.
“It’s positive to see measures aimed at accelerating housing delivery, including proposals for councils to notify Government before rejecting major housing schemes. In principle, this should help ensure that significant applications receive proper, balanced consideration at committee level rather than being driven by localised objections or NIMBY pressure.
“The intention to work with the Judiciary to reduce delays in judicial reviews is also welcome, as quicker legal processes would support faster delivery across the system.
“However, the Budget also underscores an ongoing challenge: planning reform will only succeed if local planning departments are properly resourced. The £48m announced to boost capacity, including funding for 350 additional planners, expansion of the Pathways to Planning Graduate Scheme and a new Planning Careers Hub, is a step in the right direction, but sustained investment will be needed.
“Proposals to streamline statutory consultees must be handled with care. Cutting out consultees risks storing up problems later; improvements should focus instead on realistic deadlines, better-resourced teams, and consistent, high-quality responses.
“The commitment to confirm new town locations by Spring 2026 signals a welcome intention to plan strategically and at scale. Meanwhile, the acceleration of AI-driven planning reforms could offer real benefits if implemented responsibly and transparently.
“Overall, the announcements continue the right conversations, but delivering 1.5 million homes will require more than policy statements. True progress depends on investment, capacity and consistent implementation across the planning system.”
Lucian Cook, Savills head of residential research, said: “After what must have been the most prolonged exercise in kite flying in the run up to a Budget, the introduction of an annual tax surcharge for properties worth over £2m, at levels somewhat lower than many will have feared, is probably the least worst outcome for owners of prime property.
“And with the uncertainty in the run up to the Budget having already impacted prices, the impact on the market will be much less severe than it would have been in the event of an open-ended mansion tax.
“However unwelcome any tax increase, the certainty which this provides will allow buyers and sellers to formulate plans which have been put on hold over recent months.
“This is likely to underpin a short term pick up in market activity, especially given the breathing space offered by a delay in implementation whilst the valuation exercise is conducted.
“Over the longer term the measures are likely to act as slightly greater incentive for older home owners to downsize and, in some cases, heavily mortgaged owners of high value homes to move to a less valuable property pushing some demand out of London into the commuter zone.
“However, this impact will be tempered by an ability to defer any charges until sale or death which should prevent a rush of stock coming to the market.
“In the more domestic markets, it will temper the size of mortgage those using debt to fund a purchase would otherwise be able to secure. But in reality this will be more dependent on the pace and scale of future interest rate cuts.
“At the very top of the market the policies themselves are not big enough to warrant a change in the demand supply dynamic of the central London market.
“All of this, combined with the fact that some of the risk at the top end of the market has already been priced in, is likely to mean that, overall, any further impact on prices is relatively modest, although it is likely to be a further drag on the recovery of the prime market.
“However, it is likely to have a disproportionate impact on second home markets which are already dealing with an increased stamp duty surcharge and the doubling of council tax in most cases.”
Danielle Simpson, sales director for Pye Homes, said: “While we are yet to dive deeper into the finer details of her Budget, the Chancellor’s speech yesterday painted an uncertain picture for the housing market.
“There was no mention of a new annual property tax or revisions around Stamp Duty. The current Stamp Duty thresholds are over a decade old and for first-time buyers, the current Stamp Duty relief threshold of £300,000 is insufficient to get people onto the ladder in many parts of the country, particularly London and the South East, or to allow movement in the market.
“Whilst there was no increase in the headline rate of income tax, the three-year freeze on income tax thresholds – a so-called ‘fiscal drag’ – may well see millions of people pay more tax when they are dragged into higher bands – this, along with the reduction in cash ISA allowances, means homebuyers may have less in the savings pots they rely on, in the coming years.
“Perhaps this news signals to homebuyers that moving now, before some of these changes come into effect, is the best course of action.”
Ashley Maltman, head of planning for Pye Homes, said: “While the Government’s commitment to housing delivery remains clear, the practical challenges of bringing housing sites forward are intensifying.
“The latest Budget offers little respite for SME housebuilders which are already grappling with mounting pressures on development viability from matters such as BNG and increasingly onerous s106 obligations.
“The deafening silence on meaningful intervention in the affordable housing sector is concerning. Rising costs and constrained viability assessments mean that delivering policy-compliant affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult.
“For SMEs, this challenge is particularly acute. Without innovative funding mechanisms or grant support, the gap between policy ambition and deliverable outcomes will continue to widen.”
Roger File, managing director for Blenheim Real Estate, said: “As a real estate business with both commercial and residential properties, the Budget announcements suggest a need to reevaluate our portfolio mix to ensure that the tax increases and tighter capital allowances do not adversely affect our investments as the bar has certainly been raised for profitability.
“In terms of our housebuilding business, we had hoped to hear that the Government is investing more to deliver their housing plans; the high build costs and labour shortage in the construction workforce persists, posing a risk that delivery rates may lag behind the Government’s ambition.
“For our industry to thrive, there needs to be further support for housebuilders to deliver high-quality homes, not just homes at volume.”
Ifti Maniar, planning director for WWA, said: “The lack of surprises in the Budget does not hide the disappointment felt by many clients and consultants across the industry this week. Against a backdrop of low growth and wider economic challenges, this long-awaited Budget presented an opportunity for the Chancellor to inject much-needed confidence into the sector. Unfortunately, it missed the mark.
“Although the Chancellor referenced planning reform several times in her speech, one of the few planning-related announcements was a commitment to allocate £48m over the next three years to help local planning authorities recruit more planners and increase capacity. While welcome in principle, this level of commitment and investment feels too little, too late.
“The reality is that the construction sector, and housebuilding in particular, given the 1.5 million homes target, remains far from being set up to succeed. Meaningful planning reforms and sustained investment are needed immediately if we are to see tangible improvements in delivery, efficiency, and investor confidence.”
Karen Barnes, associate director at the Reading office of Turley, said: “It is positive to see that planning reforms remain an active part of the Government’s agenda, not least addressing the skills shortage that is felt across the sector by building on the 2024 budget to get more planners in place, and new provisions through the Planning Careers Hub and the Pathways to Planning Graduate Scheme.
“For the Thames Valley area, the Government is accelerating progress on the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, including £500m Government support to the region, East West Rail, new reservoirs, the first AI Growth Zone, and a potential new town.
“The Autumn Statement presents significant investment, however will rely on the much need planning reforms that have been set out to be successfully implemented, in order to genuinely boost economic productivity and support housing delivery in the region.”
Turley has also supplied commentary from its operation on the South Coast office.
Mervyn McFarland, director in Turley’s Southampton office, said: “For a Budget speech in which the Chancellor led by referencing reforms to the planning system, ‘getting Britain building again’ and ‘spades in the ground and cranes in the sky’, the absence of any substantive measures to address the viability measures, which are currently impacting housing delivery and urban regeneration activity was disappointing.
“The failure to address the development viability crisis, and to recognise that it is affecting development in the South and South-East, not just the mayoral strategic areas in the North and Midlands, was a missed opportunity.
“From a South Coast perspective, the confirmation that Portsmouth will continue to be recognised as a critical hub for the UK’s defence industry, with commensurate investment from the defence budget was welcome.
“The allocation of funding to boost the number of public sector planners is welcome, but not enough to make a meaningful difference to the effectiveness of the planning system.”
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