Muse-backed report sets out 14 steps to support better development
27.08.26 3 min read
The Good Development Plan, published by ReGenerate and Quality of Life Futures, builds on research we first backed last year.
Read the full report here
Supported by Muse alongside The Crown Estate, Landsec and HGG London, the research draws on interviews, surveys and workshops with more than 20 developers and built-environment experts.
It explores how purpose-driven development can help tackle the housing crisis while delivering positive long-term outcomes for people and places alongside robust commercial returns.
The report comes at a time of continued focus on increasing housing delivery across the country. Its central argument is that building more homes is essential, but speed and volume alone will not solve the housing crisis.
Instead, the homes being delivered also need to be affordable to live in, supported by the right infrastructure and part of places where people can thrive.
Greenhaus, Salford
Making good development easier
The report sets out 14 recommendations across five areas, designed to build on reforms already under way rather than call for another overhaul of the system.
They include better ways to measure the long-term value created by development, increasing access to patient capital, strengthening public-private partnerships and planning infrastructure alongside new homes.
It also looks at how government and industry can share expertise and work together more effectively.
A central theme is how value is understood.
Lower energy bills, better health outcomes and stronger environmental resilience all create value over the lifetime of a home or neighbourhood, but the report finds that these benefits are not always properly recognised in traditional approaches to valuation and investment.
The recommendations are intended to help create a system where delivering better outcomes is easier to repeat at scale.
Putting the approach into practice
The report includes ECF’s work in Canning Town as one example of purpose-driven development already being delivered.
Through ECF, our partnership with Homes England and L&G, more than 1,000 homes have been delivered across Rathbone Market and Manor Road Quarter, alongside new community facilities and public space.
At Manor Road Quarter, 50% of the homes are affordable, responding to local housing need. The wider programme has also delivered a new library and community space, a two-acre public park and opportunities for local people through 38 apprenticeships.
A total of £10.8 million of social and local economic value has also been measured through the Social Value Portal.
The approach has evolved as Canning Town itself has changed.
Rathbone Market delivered 25% affordable housing, in line with local policy at the time. As the programme moved forward to Manor Road Quarter, affordable housing became a greater priority and ECF worked with public sector partners to increase this to 50%.
It is an example of how long-term partnership can allow development to respond to changing local needs while maintaining a clear ambition for the wider place.
Rathbone Market, Canning Town
Duncan Cumberland, Director of Development Management – South, said:
Building on what works
The report highlights examples from across the country where developers are already putting purpose-driven development into practice.
Its conclusion is that these approaches should not remain exceptions. The opportunity is to create the conditions that make them easier to deliver more widely, recognising the long-term value that good homes and places can create for communities and investors.
We supported The Good Development Plan as part of our wider commitment to creating high-quality places through long-term partnership.
With significant ambition to increase housing delivery across the UK, the focus now is on making sure greater pace is matched by the quality of the homes and neighbourhoods being created.