Britain: A nation of MIMBYs
Ahead of the General Election, Labour put “get Britain building again” at the centre of its Manifesto as it set out a plan to build 1.5 million homes over its first term in Parliament. Over the last Parliament the Conservatives – which made a similar commitment to build 300,000 new homes annually – failed to reach that target. In fact, the last time 300,000 homes were built in a single year was under Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in 1969-70.
Despite spending over a decade in power, the Conservatives failed to meet their housing targets and as a result the number of households in overcrowded, poor-quality, insecure accommodation has now reached record levels. That has been matched with sluggish economic growth or worse: over the last Parliament GDP per capita fell by 1.2%.
It is therefore welcome that Labour has injected urgency into its Growth Mission by consulting on reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and requiring combined authorities to develop regional spatial strategies. At the Autumn Budget and in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Government is also expected to announce further levers to increase housing supply.
In this context, there is a highly contested and ongoing national debate. The Conservative Party has been deeply divided by the politics of housebuilding and, prior to the General Election, 107 Conservative Members of Parliament established the Planning Concern Group to apply pressure on the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government to water down housebuilding ambition. Former Housing Secretary Michael Gove abandoned mandatory housebuilding targets, making them advisory instead. Labour has exploited the Conservatives weakness, dubbing Conservatives “blockers” and Labour the “builders”. Since the election over 80 Labour Members of Parliament have convened the Labour Growth Group for a different end: to advocate for housebuilding.
Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to public attitudes towards housebuilding despite the “anti-growth coalition” having played an outsized role in shaping policy debate. Where it has, it has been superficially engaged in the scale of opposition, rather than understanding why that is the case. Our programme of work will take the YIMBY-NIMBY binary (Yes in My Back Yard versus No in My Back Yard) as a starting point but will move beyond that by taking a more granular approach to public attitudes and by understanding how electoral geographies intersect with housing priorities.
Drawing on a multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) of 12,000 people commissioned by Labour Together from YouGov, our analysis of public attitudes reveals that the caucus against housebuilding are smaller than anticipated. In this note, we set out what that means for Labour.
1. NIMBYs are a vocal – but minority – voice
Our MRP tested the appetite for housebuilding among the British public by asking them whether they agreed with nine statements. We found only 17% of the public opposed local housebuilding in nearly all circumstances (the NIMBYs). This compared to the majority of the public – 66% – who were supportive of housebuilding under some circumstances - we classed these respondents as MIMBYs (Maybe In My Backyard). We found 5% of respondents said they would support local housebuilding in nearly every set of circumstances, with a further 12% saying they support housebuilding in most circumstances (YIMBYs).
At the other end of the spectrum where the Reform UK Party and the Conservatives performed strongly in the General Election, such as in Lincolnshire and Essex, there are pockets for stronger opposition to housebuilding. These are the same counties that have expressed vocal opposition against pylons.
Across the UK, there is no more than 12 percentage points difference in strong NIMBYs between constituencies, with some of the strongest NIMBYism in cities, challenging conventional assumptions that rural communities are more strongly opposed to housebuilding than urban areas. Even in constituencies such as Chipping Barnet where Dan Tomlinson defeated Theresa Villiers - who led the Planning Concern Group and stood on an anti-development ticket - only 17% of the public were NIMBYs.
2. MIMBYs are equally distributed across the UK
The assumption that support for housebuilding is overwhelmingly concentrated in London and other cities only provides a partial story.
Our analysis reveals, while there is stronger support for housebuilding in inner London, inner-cities and Scotland, support for housebuilding is broad based. Counterintuitively, despite the concentration of Conservative voters in rural communities, there is no urban-rural dividing line on support for housebuilding. In fact, MIMBYs are the largest cohort in every constituency in the UK.
Public support is shaped by age - with 83% of 18-24-year-olds persuaded by at least one argument put to them in favour of housebuilding, compared with 52% of respondents aged 65 and above. Since the most salient reason for supporting housebuilding - at 28% - was to support young people get onto the housing ladder, it is unsurprising young people are disproportionately positive.
Importantly, the public are also open to density, with our polling suggesting they are twice as likely to support housebuilding that includes homes and flats, with 64% supportive versus 27% of the public that are supportive of prioritising building houses. While the Government, combined and local authorities will need to continue to ‘sell’ the importance of density, that is tacit acknowledgement that in order to build at the scale required, there is a need to build densely.
At present Labour has a ‘coalition of the willing’ supportive of housebuilding. This should embolden Labour to be more boosterish about its Growth Mission. Yet public support isn’t static and Labour must have MIMBYs in mind when designing housing policy and communicating it. Labour’s ability to keep them on side – especially voters that switched from Conservative to Labour - will have significant implications for its electoral coalition. Failure to do so risks splintering the pro-housebuilding coalition.
3. Labour are builders, Conservatives are blockers
Our analysis also highlights the distance between Labour and Conservative voters. Labour voters are twice as likely to support housebuilding than the Conservatives, which are the strongest opponents of building more homes than any other major party. 54% of voters who supported Labour in 2019 and 2024 agree that there is insufficient housing in England – compared with only 28% of Conservative 2024 voters.
Support for housebuilding is more contested locally, and Labour to Conservative switchers are less convinced of the need for housing, so the Government will need to take action to address their concerns.
Our analysis suggests reducing the impact on public services – particularly health and transport – increases the support for housebuilding significantly. It’s important therefore for Labour to ensure it takes a ‘mission driven’ approach to housebuilding, so that it aligns with investment in transport infrastructure by the Department for Transport and investment in the NHS by the Department for Health and Social Care. Put another way, policy levers outside of the control of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government such as the proposals to increase NHS appointments by 40,000 per week, may have a positive impact on public attitudes toward housebuilding.
4. Lower Conservative support for housebuilding materialises into higher opposition
The vast majority of the public – 78% – have taken no action against housebuilding. This is not surprising given only areas within a small spatial range to new development are invited to participate formally in the planning process.
However, Conservatives are outliers. Not only do more Conservatives take the view there is insufficient housing, but a larger proportion are also willing to mobilise against it – more so than Labour, Liberal Democrats or Reform voters. Concerns raised to Members of Parliament about housebuilding as important in shaping their views - the ‘inbox effect’ - but those concerns are more likely to be received from Conservative voters.
Importantly, the demographic profile of those most likely to oppose housebuilding is voters that are in their 50s or over, in white-collar employment or retired and that live in the South of England where demand for housing is acute. That is why 28% of Conservative voters have opposed housebuilding by joining a local campaign group or engaging with the planning consultations versus 16% of Labour voters.
While there isn’t a strong correlation between income and the voters that oppose housebuilding, given retirees are disproportionately represented among that cohort, it is likely that the ‘blockers’ are more affluent on average. More salient was housing tenure, with homeowners without mortgages expressing the skepticism toward housebuilding.
Conservative voters are also divided in this respect. While Conservatives are more likely to oppose housebuilding, over a quarter of Conservative voters thought local opposition was a central barrier to housebuilding.
Conclusion
Building 1.5 million new homes over the course of this Parliament will require tough decisions. It will require short-term political pain in return for long-term economic growth.
If the Government does build at scale, there is a real prospect that it will slow house price growth - which has significantly outpaced wage growth - and improve standards of living. The Government has been explicit that the proceeds of growth will be invested in public services, which are currently experiencing crises on multiple fronts. In order to reap that electoral dividend, Labour will need to make significant progress on the policies it has set in motion - and go further still.
Labour will also need one eye on mayoral and local elections. Evidence from Parisian municipalities suggests politicians on the Centre Left are more likely to support housebuilding at a sub-national level. Anecdotally, similar conclusions may be drawn across the UK. Retaining seats occupied by Labour politicians outside of Westminster will determine the degree to which Labour can drive its Growth Mission locally.
For now, the building blocks are beginning to align. Labour’s coalition is more supportive of housebuilding than the Conservatives. Its Members of Parliament are organising to support the Government’s mission, via the Labour Growth Group and other vehicles. The Conservatives - which will elect a new Leader of the Conservative Party shortly - are likely to challenge the Government’s approach to housebuilding regardless of its direction of travel. And while housebuilding isn’t the most salient priority for the public, there is widespread acknowledgement the current situation of high housing prices, poor rental protections and rising homelessness is untenable.
