In recent years in Scotland, the approaching drought in land supply (naturally generated by the introduction of a new national planning framework - NPF4) has gone from a few initial voices of concern to an aggressive scramble to acquire a piece of the land that remains, often at impressive prices for good volume sites.

Scottish Government housing-starts data obviously predict housing completions, and, before that, annual trends in detailed planning applications predict the housing starts just around the corner. This article compares trends across the calendar years 2023, 2024, and 2025, across the 240 applications submitted by 27 developers consistently acquiring land and working across multiple council areas. This data shows a bleak picture just beginning to emerge.

Mid-size builders (those who sought consent for a total of 200-800 units over the three years analysed) have struggled in the scramble for land, going from a combined total of nearly three and a half thousand units applied for in 2023, and then fading from there (to an average per annum in 2024 & 2025 of just 60% of that). We have already seen the likes of Mactaggart & Mickel, Dawn Homes, Dandara, Stewart Milne and Walker sites being picked over as they exit from housebuilding in Scotland.

By 2027, staff reductions and/or being acquired by larger players appear likely to be a stronger theme for mid-size builders, without a change in land supply policy and taxation – at least until NPF4-compliant LDPs arrive. And even if the larger homebuilders, due to impending land shortages, shed employees later, and a lesser percentage of their teams, note that they employ nearly three times as many people.

It is good to keep national policy current, i.e. bringing in NPF4, but that process comes with bottlenecks. With stale LDPs across most authorities, due particularly to LDP drafting having been held back for several years to allow NPF4 to get in front and guide, it is inevitable now that the lack of housing allocations will affect housing construction numbers until new NPF4-compliant LDPs start to arrive.

Many LDP adoptions are programmed from the end of 2027 through 2029, assuming no improvements sought by the Scottish Government or other delays. Clearly too, when these next-generation LDPs arrive, there are numerous steps before new allocations can translate into housing starts, and then housing completions (including land marketing, planning applications in principle, investment in technical investigations, S.75 negotiations, arranging utility supplies/connections, and so on).

Geographically, when one looks at these three years of detailed planning application data across both mid- and large-sized builders, East Scotland is the first region to feel the drought arriving. In the East, units applied for peaked in 2024 amid the aggressive scramble in Scotland to ‘hoover up’ any remaining land. Anecdotal evidence suggests the downward slide in the number of homes applied for shall unfold in 2026, spreading across most of Scotland’s regions.

In fairness to the smaller councils in the East, it should be acknowledged that Scottish Government allowed the populous City of Edinburgh’s adopted LDP (Nov 2024) to declare a lot of well-established business operations as its housing sites, and this LDP came with an acknowledgement from the approving Reporter that the LDP’s housing numbers were inadequate (and needed a further superseding LDP to replace it in order to resolve the numbers deficit - which is of course a long process targeting May 2028 at best).

West Scotland, as defined here, holds 45% of Scotland’s population, and whilst its planning application numbers have not started to slide off a cliff just yet - over the last 3 calendar years West Scotland has only seen 31% of the unit numbers applied for in Scotland – meaning North Scotland is increasingly becoming the region that has a proportionally healthier housing delivery pipeline. In the past 3 years, North Scotland’s planning applications amongst these developers analysed totalled nearly twelve thousand units, clearly ahead of each of West and East Scotland.

The picture above does not paint a good outlook for either private housing delivery or affordable delivery. Some council areas will see a decline in housing starts in 2026, with the drought in the arteries of the planning system really likely to hit the whole of Scotland’s construction starts from 2027 to 2030. It was no surprise to see the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations’ call for urgent action in December 2025, when the social housing starts year-to-September 2025 figure was published, being the lowest since records began in 1997.

This analysis has not reviewed the activities of individual council housing departments – but even for those councils (i) with some vacant housing land, and (ii) who are actively working to build out their sites - their ability to counteract the above impending drought is limited (without more S.75 affordable sites landing through planning applications of the developers who are out taking business investment risks by acquiring sites).

If there is one winner here at least, it will be existing homeowners in Scotland who will benefit from supply constraints further putting upward pressure on their resale prices.

What can be done? Bold action is required now by the Scottish Government to prevent a significant drop in housing starts (and even bolder to achieve an increase in starts). Firstly, the trading of land between housebuilders needs to be facilitated by dropping LBTT from one developer to another. Once the 5% LBTT is paid by the first acquiring developer (on the VAT-inclusive price), the maths becomes quite hard to justify another such cut going to Revenue Scotland when evaluating opportunities for sharing land amongst housebuilders.

Secondly, very clear and direct planning policy intervention is required to provide scope to develop more land for housing, and quickly. For example, sites identified as preferred for housing in emerging LDPs could be treated as allocated to get through the housing emergency and protect jobs in the industry. Furthermore, looking at vacant land within settlement boundaries of existing LDPs, ‘white land’, green shaded land, and commercially allocated land where there is not under-provision could all be taken as allocated for housing, under defined circumstances, until emerging LDPs are adopted.

Footnote: Facts and assumptions

Circa 240 detailed planning applications reviewed for over 32,000 units (lodged over 3 years).

Review of details planning applications (full or AMSC), ignoring remixes, PPP, etc.

Applications of the following companies were sampled:
    • Firms that consistently buy land and finance construction in Scotland.
    • Firms applying for an average of 67+ units p.a. over the past 3 calendar years.
    • Being: Persimmon, Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, CALA, Miller, Springfield, Keepmoat, Cruden, Bellway, Avant, Robertson, Moda, Places for People, Link, Dandara, Bancon, Sanctuary, Dundas, Kirkwood, Campion, A S Homes, Allanwater, Westpoint, Cullross, Urban Union and Lovell (plus other group trading names/entities).
    • Many smaller but well-known names in the industry were reviewed but have not secured an average of 67+ units p.a. in their planning application throughput, despite an appetite to build more.

Consistent analysis of the same parties each calendar year to review annual trends.

Planning application outcomes were ignored – as the focus is lodgement activity by unit numbers.

Nominal definition of 3 regions of Scotland (by planning authority):
    • North Scotland: Clackmannanshire, Fife, Stirling, Argyll & Bute and northward
    • West Scotland: The two Lanarkshires and westward
    • East Scotland: Scottish Borders, Falkirk, West Lothian, and eastward